Cursed
by Cyanthis
Summary: No one can be return from beyond the Veil, or so we're made to think, but in the wizarding world, just about anything can be done. (SiriusOC) rewrite as Promises to Keep
1. Prelude: When Something Half Forgotten

Cursed  
By Cynthia Chen  
  
- - -  
  
Prelude  
  
When Something Half-Forgotten Comes to Call  
  
- - -  
  
"What is it that you want?" Julianne Adhlar frowned at the old man standing before her, more because he was a familiar person than anything else, "If I must remind you, I certainly did turn my back on that world a long time ago."  
  
There was silence for a few moments, as the man outside her door stood still and didn't look like he was going to acquiesce to her wish to be left alone anytime soon, and yet Julianne couldn't quite close the door on him either. Finally, and with a heavy sigh, she opened her front door wider, beckoned for him to come in. Might as well see what he had to say, right? That couldn't hurt.  
  
"What we leave behind still comes back to haunt us every once in a while." He stated simply, but he accepted her invitation, and sat down at her kitchen table.  
  
"Well, is there anything in paticular you came to tell me about?" Something in her would have laughed, of course something was going on.  
  
Albus Dumbledore was not the sort to just suddenly come by for a chat with a student from days long over, especially one who had made it clear long ago that she no longer wished to have anything to do with wizadry or witchcraft. Indeed, as far as Julianne could remember, no matter what the old Hogwarts Headmaster said, no matter how inane or or entirely pointless his doings and words seemed, there was always some purpose to them. Of course, there had to be something in paticular that needed to be discussed.  
  
"Someone has fallen through the veil." He said abruptly.  
  
A chill hand seemed to grip her heart, her soul, her very being. No, part of her mind whispered. Even if she had left that part of her life, the one of wands, charms, and potions long ago, if for a moment someone had told her it was crucial for her to return, Julianne probably would have. But absolutely not to the other half of her inborn abilities.  
  
Gods above, she'd thought that no one would dare call her on the abilities the Adhlar curse left her with. It was what had been the deciding factor in her leaving the wizarding world behind those fifteen years ago. To occasionally be able to call a person's soul back from beyond, or rather from the very precipice between life and death, but at great price. There was a reason why the Adhlar bloodline, once among the most prominent and powerful bloodlines had now faded to nothing. Not a single one of them left, willing to admit to such a curse being on their family, each and every one of them took flight from all that just as Julianne herself had chosen to do.  
  
Usage of the ability to soul-chase, as it were was what made the familial 'gift' a true curse. It ate one from the inside out, body and mind. In the horrible times when You-Know-Who had first started his quest for power, just before Julianne had abandoned her heritage, she'd seen it happen to a cousin.  
  
Not that Pyrane Adhlar and herself had been very close, to the contrary Julianne hadn't known her cousin much at all. She had been a courageous individual, though, bringing back several aurors from that edge before they passed on, some of the fortunate ones who hadn't been hit with the finality of the true killing curse. Avada Kedavra. Her own descent had been swift and debilitating, Julianne remembered the horror of seeing her cousin, wasted and in a catatonic state in St. Mungo's.  
  
Maybe she had barely known her cousin, but that was not the natural state of any human being. To look like she had stared death in the face, even been taken away by it yet still retain that shred of being to keep them from being truly 'dead'. Worse would be what had been happening before they'd managed to subdue her with all manner of sedative potions. Raving madness, sudden bouts of violent screaming, even as she was wasting away from some manner of illness none of their doctors could quite pinpoint. Give in to the Adhlar gift, and that was your due - the horrible effects of the Adhlar curse.  
  
Yet, Pyrane had been a unique example, even those of their family who stayed on in the wizarding world often did not use their curse of a gift so frivolousy. Even if it wasn't frivolous, she certainly saved lives. But it had been rash to over-use it all in a matter of weeks and months. Sooner or later, none of them could stand it anymore. To be viewed as a novelty of sorts, to be gossiped over, to be avoided in fear of one whose connection to that fine line between life and death. Or even in fear that the Adhlar curse could be contagious. Never heard many be quite that foolish though, it can't be passed on by contact any more than one can utilize it and still escape.  
  
Maybe they were all fools, to leave a world that was firmly ingrained into their blood, they could certainly be fine as long as they didn't soul- chase. But how could they ever wave about a wand, even ride a broomstick, knowing that such a dark side existed as a foil to the wonders of magic? It could drive a person insane, just as surely as the effects of using the Adhlar gift could, only in a slower way. Sure, one could even say to live and let live, to use the gift and not fear the curse because one could save many lives beyond their own, if they could manage to reach a person still alive, but barely hanging on in time. But humans were by nature such selfish beings, Julianne knew she would never have been able to take it.  
  
"Dumbledore. sir, you know it's not within the parameters of soul chasing to bring back the dead. I'm rather certain that we can't actually return someone whose crossed that boundary. If they were on the edge, perhaps, but not someone who's actually gone through." She also sat now, but avoided his gaze.  
  
"Well, this someone is a rather unique case. By all accounts, he didn't cross the veil the conventional way." Matter-of-fact, but not overtly pleading that Julianne do something about this situation he was trying to explain.  
  
Another part of why most, if not all of the Adhlar line chose to leave the wizarding world. It just didn't do to always have people trying to get their loved ones back, who thought their beloved brother, father, mother, sister. anyone, was worth taking away a little from another soul. Maybe they could soul-chase once, twice, more times without a shred of consequence but then one never knew which 'straw' would finally 'break the camel's back'. Old family stories said that some in the far past had done it dozens of times only to live a happy life beyond their soul-chasing. Still more precautionary tales told of people who barely managed it once, then gave in to the curse. To have their sanity and health eaten away.  
  
"How is this 'he' a unique case then?" She looked up now, with some marginal disbelief, her eyebrows raised, "What is his story that brings him to beyond the veil?"  
  
"Well, he fell through the veil. Quite literally, his physical form was pushed through the gateway, although I'm reasonably able to believe he was still fully alive when that happened." No, he wasn't joking, Albus Dumbledore never joked about such a grave matter.  
  
"I'll give you one thing, it is quite unheard of. But what do you expect me to do about it?" She glared at him then, not caring that he looked. tired, for lack of a better word.  
  
For just a moment, she wondered what exactly could be going on in her old world just now. While it was the truth that Albus Dumbledore had always been rather old, from her the few times she'd ever chanced upon meeting him, the rather ancient Hogwarts Headmaster had seemed beyond the constraints of his age. Silvery hair and beard along with basic math skills as to how long he'd been teaching and then been Headmaster showed to all that he was old. Yet, she remembered from back then that's he'd never seemed that way, but now? There wasn't that sparkle of youth in his eyes any more, he just looked exhausted like most older people could look. She bit back her questions about what exactly was going on.  
  
"I think you know, Miss Adhlar." Yes, he definitely seemed to be much older than he had been all those years ago. "Soul-chasing might very well be one of the more costly gifts to use, and in truth I'm not sure if it can extend far enough to pulling someone physically from beyond the veil, but one never knows until they've tried."  
  
"Right." She said, although she wasn't really believing just now.  
  
"You know what could potentially be the price for you better than anyone else, I think. Please, I'd rather you feel no pressure in this, otherwise I think I could only be guilty whether you succeed or not. However, I'd very politely ask you to at least consider coming by, it can be discussed in further depth then." He took out an envelope - just a plain white envelope, and placed it on the finished oak surface of her kitchen table.  
  
She didn't get out of her seat to see him out her kitchen door. Instead, she just sat there, and having chosen the chair with it's back toward the door, she wasn't watching as he closed the door with a decisive clicking sound. Now there was nothing but her silent kitchen with none of the electric lights turned on even as she could see the shadows growing deeper as the sky darkened.  
  
Damn it all, but he'd obviously been correct. What one wishes to forget and just leave behind inevitably did come back in rather blatant and spectacular fashion. No pressure? Honestly, what did that old codger think she'd feel at having someone from a life she'd been eager to forget coming right to her back door and making any sort of request that made it clear a life could be hanging in the balance? Julianne sighed heavily, and slammed a fist down on the table. The hollow sound did little to break the deafening silence.  
  
---  
  
Author's Notes :  
  
I'm not sure if all the italics and such will show up after Fanfiction.net finishes with it. but thoughts as opposed to speech and word emphasis should still be fine, I hope? I'm one of those still in denial of a certain character's death in Book 5, and the concept of this is probably entirely unrealistic, but I hope Julianne is a decently written character at least. The idea of soul-chasing isn't entirely original, and I feel it was inspired most by Lady Berenice's stories in the Tamora Pierce fandom. (In her Meeting of Magics piece, it's life-chasing though, and it's a bit different.)  
  
Constructive criticism is always appreciated. 


	2. Part 1 Madness Setting in

Disclaimer: Hem hem, and shame on me for I neglected this last part. The entire world in which this story takes place was created by author J.K. Rowling. Some characters, though, belong to me. Julianne and Pyrane Adhlar, and Trevan Leigh belong to me as do all other unfamiliar characters.  
  
- - -  
  
Part 1  
  
That's the Madness Already Setting In  
  
- - -  
  
"Do you want. to end up like me?" A twisted figure, features contorted almost beyond recognition whispered to her, reaching out towards her, "You know you can't say no, you know you would give anything to get back to what you left behind."  
  
Something in that voice was too terrible for words to explain. In that ragged whisper, a sense of loss, of pain beyond imagining lingered as an almost tangible chill in the air. Perhaps the words weren't all that threatening, even that horrible thing that almost couldn't be called a person anymore wasn't all that threatening either. It was that voice that tore into her most of all, mostly because even then she knew it was entirely correct.  
  
"Pyrane Adhlar." She said, a simple observation on what was fact to her in this dream.  
  
She'd been buried last year, someone back at St. Mungo's had decided to send Julianne an owl to inform her that her cousin had finally 'died' or rather, stopped breathing. Ever since her sanity had given out like that fifteen years ago, she had considered her cousin as 'dead' or at least, gone from this world for the rest of eternity. She remembered it mostly because she'd thrown a shoe at the owl, not to be malicious, but Julianne hadn't needed that reminder of a life she'd left behind. It'd missed, though, and the owl had seemed rather miffed, dropping the letter and leaving hastily.  
  
"No, not anymore. You're thinking it yourself. The one who was Pyrane was wiped away because of her own foolishness. But you also know you can't escape."  
  
For once, Julianne had managed to wake up from a nightmare peacefully. Just snapped open her eyes, and all she was staring at was her bedroom ceiling. She'd been sure those awful dreams about her cousin and of course, the curse had disappeared long ago. Groaning as she sat up slowly, she thought that perhaps it would be best to see a therapist. A Muggle therapist, because after Albus Dumbledore had come to call yesterday she certainly needed no more reminders of the wizarding world.  
  
It was one of those things she'd thought she should do ever since that fateful day when she'd just up and left her home back in London with not a word of explanation to anyone. Emptying her Gringotts vault and exchanging it all for Muggle currency, and settling down in the middle of nowhere, she'd put her wand and all remnants of her magic-using things that she couldn't bear to throw away in the corner of a rarely-used cabinet and let that be that. The nightmares about what sort of horror the effects of the Adhlar curse felt like had still haunted her, and she'd thought about seeing what the Muggles called a therapist or a psychologist, and ask them what to do about recurrent bad dreams. But those had faded away, until just now anyways.  
  
Well, if past experience was any good indication, there was no way she'd be able to sleep peacefully any more tonight. It was only, she checked the digital alarm clock next to her, the glaring red digits said: 1:25. Well, then, if she looked tired at her bookstore job tomorrow, she'd just make up some excuse for it. That was, if anyone asked, small town people could be nosy but even after so long most of the people around here still regarded her warily.  
  
And they're certainly warranted in doing so. I wouldn't trust myself to be anything but an outsider. She smiled a bit at the thought. After all, she had suddenly and quickly bought this old house with cash, no less and just settled in, all in the space of a week. Neighbors had come to call, but she hadn't had much to say to them. Just because she'd left her old life behind, didn't mean the Ministry of Magic wouldn't take action if she revealed too much about the magical world to them. Them meaning her now somewhat-friends and acquaintances, Muggles one and all and much simpler than any of her witch or wizard comrades had ever been.  
  
Julianne had been rather surprised that they accepted her so easily, actually. The old woman who owned Pages of Happenstance, where she worked now had just immediately set her to doing everything about the place. Mrs. Kelson was a widow of at least eighty years if Julianne could venture a guess, and while she liked talking to her customers and reading silly stories about talking animals and whatnot to the children, she wasn't much of a person for calculations and inventory work. To the best of her own knowledge, Mrs. Kelson was in very good condition for an aged Muggle, but that didn't mean it was easy for her to take care of every aspect of running her beloved store. She had trusted the quiet young woman who suddenly appeared in her hometown; almost as if by magic, with opening the shop every morning at nine and taking care of anything her older self might have missed by mistake.  
  
Mumbling and groaning about what a lack of sleep did to a person, she almost literally dragged herself out of bed and downstairs to her silent, darkened kitchen. Sitting down at the kitchen table where she and her old school Headmaster had been earlier this evening, she leaned her head down on a wrist and thought about it all. A less in-the-moment part of her wondered at what a mess she must look. Dressed in mismatched pajamas, her black hair mussed up from the pillows, her eyes bleary with the human need for sufficient slumber.  
  
Then a thought hit her suddenly, like a gunshot. Who is important enough that anyone would come looking for me to even try bringing him back? Even though it could well be impossible, with something like it never having happened before? For all that Julianne really didn't know Albus Dumbledore very well, she had heard many things about him, even from her own parents before their hasty exit from that side of life. That it must be someone truly important if he chose to come calling, especially on someone who'd shown every indication of seperating herself from everything to do with witchcraft and wizardry.  
  
Great, it was just wonderful that curiosity was now added to the mix of factors leading up to the inevitable conclusion that she would accept his unspoken invitation to consider returning to her Adhlar heritage, to at least consider assisting the mysterious person who'd had the utter misfortune to literally fall through the veil.  
  
Because that wraith that had resembled Pyrane Adhlar in her nightmares had been right. Julianne had never been the sort to refuse any request, always been the type to at least put in a token effort toward doing her best for others if they asked. Oh, that was quite the weakness when it came to other students asking to coping her papers back at Hogwarts, but it was also the main issue now. Then there was the plain and simple fact that, frankly Julianne hadn't really wanted to leave her old life behind anyway. To her it had quite plainly been everything, though she was thankful that she'd taken Muggle Studies and fit in reasonably well here after the first few months.  
  
Cowardice had driven her away, and she knew it. Fear that she'd one day have to face a similar fate to anyone who used the Adhlar abilities. But now, when there was no unresponsive Pyrane on a bed in St. Mungo's, that fear wasn't quite as obvious as it had been back then. And there was still that curiosity.  
  
Curse that old looney, and may lightning strike him where he stands. Julianne scowled, as she realized all this she was definitely not in a forgiving mood, knowing that despite her initial doubts, she was going to give in. Conniving old dunghead, he knew I would end up going back to it all.  
  
She graced the envelope he had left behind with an equally angry expression, as if she willed it to burst into flames. Why, she ought to get out her old wand, and set it on fire herself, but in her heart of hearts she knew she wouldn't be able to will herself to do that. Against her own sense of what would be best for her current almost-normal Muggle life, and knowing she wouldn't be able to return to it for some time, she snatched it from the tabletop and opened it.  
  
Dear Julianne Adhlar,  
  
If you're reading this, and I don't doubt that you probably will. (Yes, I do know that you generally do what others suggest, especially after all those incidences of cheating going on whenever no one else wanted to do their schoolwork and gave it all to you.)  
  
You're still free to decide whether or not you'll accept my earlier request, and until then there remains little I may tell you. However, if you look into the wizarding world right now, it's in a straight mess and while what you can do wouldn't be able to set all things right, I will state that it's of potential importance, if not in the entire scheme of things certainly to some who are deeply involved in it. It would mean very much to many if you would at least try your hand in bringing this individual back.  
  
Pulling a few strings with an old friend in that paticular department of the Ministry, I've had your fireplace temporarily reconnected to the Floo network, and it will remain as such until seven o'clock tomorrow evening. Be sure to guard this note carefully, and not lose it. If you decide against this whole matter, burn this note. Otherwise, keep it with you as proof of your identity. I've enclosed just enough Floo Powder to get you where you need to go. If you've decided to help out, come to Number 12 Grimmauld Place.  
  
-Albus Dumbledore  
  
Now she sighed heavily, something she seemed to feel like doing more and more these days. Well, she had until tomorrow to set her things in order before setting off into the world she'd really thought she'd never manage to return to for what could potentially be an extended visit. Soul-calling someone back without his physical body to anchor it? If it wasn't entirely impossible, it certainly wasn't going to be the sort of thing to be accomplished in a day.  
  
Maybe while I'm there I should have my family history checked a bit. She thought to herself. It wouldn't be out of hand to believe that a tendency for madness is probably a familial trait. Really, she'd never had any spectacular adventures even back at Hogwarts, but now she'd be attempting something never done before. If this wasn't madness, than what could it be?  
  
- - -  
  
"Julianne Adhlar? No, I don't believe we've ever met, but is she related to Pyrane Adhlar?" Remus Lupin inquired after he'd listened to Dumbledore's plans.  
  
"Yes, they're cousins I believe, second cousins to be exact." Lately, they'd all begun to notice that his many years seemed to be taking their toll on him, the voice of reason and authority behind the Order of the Pheonix  
  
"Ah. I don't remember her much, although she seemed a bit. Foolish, even if by all accounts she was one who saved not very few lives." He grimaced slightly at the memories of those unpleasant times, when Voldemort had last been rising to power, "Although I would rather not speak ill of those who met much grief later on."  
  
It was probably most appropriate to be just telling Lupin about what could be one of their only plausible options in doing something to help Sirius Black. They'd been friends, along with the now-deceased James Potter and treacherous Peter Pettigrew way back in their schooldays, and yet Remus was one of the few who could assess such a plan without letting his emotions get too much in the way.  
  
Certainly most of the Order didn't think as highly of Sirius, since for most of the last fourteen years or so most of the wizarding world had thought him a convicted murderer. Few of them knew him well, and most of the ones who did weren't in the sort of position to give an objective opinion about anything to do with Sirius. Severus Snape certainly would be much more partial to the idea of just letting things be, wherever Lupin's old friend was now. As for Harry. It could only be cruel to tell him of this possibility now, when no guarantees could be made.  
  
"For all that Pyrane made her mark in helping in the effort against Voldemort, I'd have to agree in that she was foolish. She soul-chased for many Aurors who in turn managed to go on fighting the Death Eaters with their narrowly retreived lives. Yet she did it all without thinking as to the consequences. That can ultimately only be considered entirely selfless, yet it also hurt many others as well." The silver-haired old wizard paused, as if in deep memory, "Yes, it was what sent most of the Adhlar line running off and away from the War, to live as Muggles. The knowing what could well face them if they used that part of their family heritage."  
  
"Ah." He nodded gravely, understanding, "It's considered a Family Curse, isn't it? Aren't they all registered at the Ministry. Much like werewolves?"  
  
"Yes." Dumbledore affirmed, with an equally grave nod, "Although the Registry of Cursed Families was already in badly maintained state even when I first started teaching at Hogwarts. Too many old and influential families were highly persuasive in their quest to eliminate records of what could be afflicting their bloodlines." With a slightly bemused expression, something that was rare in these trying times, he said, "An alarming number of those curses are because their long-ago ancestors did commit some foul deed, although if that counts for anything, the condition of the Adhlar family was something that's existed since before records were kept."  
  
"It would put a sort of stigma of anyone affected, though." Lupin agreed, "Whether they were responsible for it's being put on them or not."  
  
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be going." Dumbledore quietly got up and left their meeting place in one of the numerous seemingly useless rooms in their current headquarters. "Farewell, Remus."  
  
"Farewell, Albus." For a moment he smiled at how odd it was to address the old headmaster by his first name.  
  
It was something most of them had trouble doing, practically the entire Order still thought of Albus Dumbledore as a headmaster, a figure of authority even as none of them had been studying at Hogwarts for quite some time. Therefore, it was difficult to address him by his name, yet most of them had grown out of calling him 'Headmaster' all the time as well, a perplexing dilemma.  
  
One that was entirely overshadowed by his endless contemplations as to what it really meant to have Sirius dead. Or perhaps not dead, if truly was a unique occurrence to have someone be literally go though the veil. It just was one of those things that had never managed to happen before, for as long it had been kept in the Department of Mysteries. Even the veil was a sort of paradox, a door opened to somewhere that no one wanted to go and certainly that no one could return through, but it just had to exist all the same. They'd all taken his old school friend Padfoot for dead, and they might as well because it was considered in the realm of definite fact that no one could just step back through the veil.  
  
Loss always brought new and confusing thoughts to any person. When he'd first heard that Sirius had allegedly betrayed James and been responsible for the death of half of their old crowd back at Hogwarts, he's come to accept that Sirius as he had known was dead. After such happenings, there could certainly no longer be any sort of friendship between the two. Then when his innocence had been proved through the revelation of Peter's duplicity, it had brought back the memories of the 'good old days', and that had been nice, to be able to know that and old friend you reminisced about sometimes wasn't a cold-blooded murderer. But now? He found himself laughing bitterly, how sadistic fate could be. To take away an old friend, give him back and then rip him away again.  
  
Maybe he hadn't gotten to know Sirius Black again, and obviously they couldn't all just be 'the Marauders' again, the close and inseperable group they had been way back when, it was still painful to know that this second loss could easily have been prevented. If only they'd stopped him from coming along to rescue Harry and his friends from the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries that fateful night, if only.  
  
- - -  
  
"You know, we could hear the floor creaking as you knelt by the door to listen in." Albus Dumbledore mused as he passed another man in his late twenties standing by the staircase, trying - and failing miserably to look nonchalant.  
  
"Well, nothing every seems to escape you." He grumbled, before turning the full force of his still boyish grin toward the head of the Order of the Pheonix, "Really, I can't stop myself, it's part of that Leigh curiosity if you will."  
  
"Certainly, being from such a cursed family you would know, I suppose. Curiosity might have killed the cat but it always kills the Leigh." He stated the family motto with an air of light amusement, "You knew Julianne Adhlar well in her school days?" He asked as he disappeared down the stairs.  
  
"Yes. I did." He whispered, though Dumbledore probably couldn't hear it. "And replace 'curiosity' with 'stupid risk-taking bravado' to be much more historically correct."  
  
The Leighs were a rather recently established Wizarding family. Mitchell Leigh, a wizard from an otherwise Muggle family some ninety years before had managed to start a family that leaned very heavily to producing children with sufficient magical power to be considered witches and wizards. However, old Mitchell may god rest his soul had in the end given in to curiosity. Just had to see if he could go that extra day before seeing a doctor, just because! When four of his seven children had met their ends directly because of a sort of curiosity or rather risk-taking bravado some git in the Ministry had decided it was cause to consider the Leighs a fully cursed family, something old Mitchell's posterity had taken to good-naturedly. Five deaths in such a small family in the short space of three months had to mean something foul was afoot. Could a tendency for taking entirely frivolous risks even be considered a curse, when in many ways most deaths were an indirect result of some risk taken. Take poor Sirius Black, if he had just stayed here instead of running off like that. Or if his rather foolish godson hadn't decided to so foolishly go to the Department of Mysteries then.  
  
Although no one could say his familial curse of sorts had anything on poor Julianne's. But she always said to call her Julia because there was another Julianne in Ravenclaw back then. And he'd always know her as the little Julia he could talk about his cloying parents to. What with them getting into full-blown panic every single time he set out to do anything. Mostly because happenstance had pushed them together, both children with a somewhat infamous familial name. (Adhlar being well-known as a paticularly unfortunate family to associate with, Leighs being avoiced in general because most had heard they were as strange as all get-out.)  
  
But Trevan Leigh had almost entirely forgotten little Julia. She'd left in the middle of their fifth year, completely without explanation. After going off just before the start of their Christmas holiday to visit a sick relative, supposedly, she'd just never returned. He'd tried to send her an owl, several in fact but maybe it was because his old owl had been a bit addled by too many mild crashings into windows because he'd returned with the unopened letters every time. Further research by going in person to her house the following summer proved fruitless when no one even came to open the front gate at her family's old house in London.  
  
He'd known what her family curse happened to be, but he hadn't thought much of it even when he'd heard what happened to fellow Order member Sirius Black. (Trevan had never been given any combative assignments yet, he wasn't as experienced as any of the older memebers and even he would admit he couldn't keep his head in a crisis anywhere near as well as dear Tonks could. Alas, all that he could do was watch for targets of middling importance either as a protector or spy depending on the target person and make sure nothing too radical happened which they didn't know about. ) To think that they were going to try pulling out someone who had actually passed that line that was the veil, though, and not only in spirit but in person as well.  
  
He nearly tsked at such a previously unheard-of plan. Still, if the general heedless nature of the Leigh family, which he'd gotten in full force was anything to go by, it was his philosophy that such risky or entirely original plans should generally be given a go if at all possible. So he would fully support this effort, if his opinion were ever asked for, and even if it weren't.  
  
No one had ever said it would be a simple matter for an all-too-ordinary and occasionally-still-childish-acting man to be accepted among the august company he seemed to be finding himself in. At least it wasn't the Ministry he had to be dealing with every day, even if just about everyone else in the Order always looked torn between reprimanding him for his lack of formality or just outright laughing at him. Though it's justified, I suppose, since I'm always playing the idiot. That was, after all what made him useful. No one, least of all a Death Eater, ever suspected that the somewhat batty young wizard who lived down the lane was really watching their every move.  
  
---  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
Thank you to all reviewers who were kind enough to comment! As per Rocker Baby's request here is a short description of protagonist Julianne Adhlar.  
  
Full Name: Julianne Adhlar-Wang  
  
(Her mother happens to be a second-generation immigrant with roots in China. That's not a major plot point though, as Julianne has never decided to learn much of her mother's culture. It's just something I worked in because I'm also of Asian blood. Think of it as a somewhat-cameo of the author's ethnicity!)  
  
Age: 29 (That's until her birthday in late October.)  
  
Height: 5'6''  
  
Physical Appearance: skinny, straight and 'mathematically precise' features, shoulder legnth black hair that's layered, brown eyes of an 'ordinary shade'  
  
Also, I'd definitely like more reviews, constructive criticism or not. I'd especially like to know what readers think of Trevan. Sirius will definitely be a major character when Julianne finally gets around to reviving him through 'soul-chasing', but until then it's mostly Julianne and Trevan being crucial in the story. Both characters will be ruminating a bit on their own appearance in the next part, in reasonably objective fashion. I'd hope that neither are behaving like Mary-Sue type characters. (Hint, this is a prompt for comments telling me whether or not they are being obstinately over-perfect.)  
  
Until next update, farewell. 


	3. Part 2 People Who Don't Give Good Welcom...

Disclaimers: J.K. Rowling is the sole owner of most of the characters here, though I'd like to think Trevan Leigh, Julianne Adhlar and the rest of the originall characters are my own intellectual property. Oh, and since I neglected this in the initial update, thanks to all reviewers, and I always like more feedback.  
  
- - -  
  
Part 2  
  
Of People Who Don't Give Good Welcomes  
  
- - -  
  
"Yes, Mrs. Kelson, I'll be careful." A pause as the woman on the other end of the telephone conversation spoke, "Thank you, and I really am sorry for leaving so suddenly, it's just that it's something truly important. You'll take care not to strain yourself too much? Good, thank you. Good bye to you too." Then she placed the phone back in it's holder.  
  
Julianne took a deep breath. This was it then, not quite too late to back out yet. Looking into the stone fireplace, she could still decide not to light that fire, not to toss in that green powder, not to step through to this 'Number 12 Grimmauld Place'. I can still as good as say, that's not my fight and not my place anymore. Being estranged from that part of the world so long, why wouldn't she want to stay that way? Against her better wishes, she already knew she just couldn't let things be when it seemed she might be able to do something for 'the good guys'.  
  
Why did she think they, whoever Albus Dumbledore was currently representing were the 'good guys' anyway? People changed, like she herself had these last fourteen or fifteen years, just because he'd been on the forefront of the effort against You-Know-Who's forces last time didn't mean he was still a good guy. Since when had she cared what side she took in their troubles? It was only because it was a question of someone's life that it mattered.  
  
For all her shortcomings in terms of compassion and empathy, she'd never been able to deny the importance of any life. Whether it was refusing to smash a spider that had somehow gotten into her trunk or not changing a beetle into a button during Transfiguration because she wondered whether that would kill it. There had been times when she'd had some sort of strife with other students but she always stopped at cruel words, and never managed to whip out her wand and actually jinx them because she couldn't bear to actually cause anyone pain. Even if potentially fatal curses or hexes were far beyond her level then, Julianne had always found something about most of those occasionally painful little tricks to be rather reprehensible. Sure, maybe it would only make someone's legs give out for the next several hours, or set a corner of their robes on fire but she'd always stopped before actually using those hexes or curses on anyone. Thankfully, conflict with others occurred rarely, since she didn't have all that many many friends that she could potentially disagree with.  
  
She glanced at herself in the mirror hung above the mantlepiece again. What she saw was a Muggle woman, dressed in demure everyday clothes. Plain woolen skirt that went to her knees, equally bland sweater. Those certainly were a far cry from the loud colors and flamboyant styles of robes that most of the witches and wizards in her day seemed to like wearing. Nothing paticularly witch-like about her rather plain black hair in it's shoulder- legnth layered style, or her straight and mathematically precise features. Brown eyes of an ordinary shade looked back at her balefully, the only thing that showed her magical half was the wand in her hand.  
  
Just this morning she'd taken it out of that rarely used back cupboard, dusted it off with a rag, and tried a small spell on mending one of her slightly torn curtains. It'd hadn't really worked, and Julianne had wondered if wands could take on their own personality. It had felt a little like the old thing hadn't much wanted to cast any small spells being rather pettily upset at having been put away for the last fourteen going on fifteen years. Eleven inches, willow, rather springy, with unicorn tail- hair, one of many very similar ones available for purchase at Ollivander's. As far as she could recall, her wand-buying experience had been rather uneventful, and when she'd finally gotten her hands on an allegedly 'suitable' wand there hadn't been anything more than a few colorful sparks to show it.  
  
"Hmph." She muttered something about how horrible and inefficient Floo power was as she tried to get as much as she could from the evelope by tipping it this way and that, "Maybe I should have waited it out until I could get an Apparition License." She thought out loud.  
  
Lighting the fire took more time than she would have like. She didn't even remember why she hadn't splurged on having a gas fireplace installed along with the other renovations she had commissioned before she first moved in. It certainly would have saved her no small amount of trouble what with having to drag the store-bought logs all the way home. And just tossing lighted matches into the haphazardly stacked pile of wood hadn't been as effective as it should have been. But it could have gone on forever, and Julianne probably would not have minded it too much, better to be slaving away at trying to get the fire going then stepping back into a world she didn't feel much like returning to.  
  
Yet soon she was standing in front of a merrily crackling fire, tongues of orange, red, and yellow flame dancing merrily as she tried to wipe away all her doubts. Some part of her mind realized vaguely that she had no idea what sort of location Number 12 Grimmauld place, was it an office? Someone's home? It would hardly do to pop into some wizarding family's living room even as she was still clutching the letter to verify her identity to whoever could be waiting on the other end.  
  
As she prepared to toss the green powder into the flames, she wondered vaguely at what would happen to her house if she left the fire burning. Hopefully it would just put itself out when it ran out of fuel, and not do any damage to the mostly-wooden structure. She'd grown quite fond of it, having lived here for the last more than 10 years.  
  
Oh, but Floo travel had never made for an entirely pleasant experience. It was like being dragged in some indeterminite direction, she was so disoriented she couldn't even tell if it was down, up, sideways, or somewhere in between. The only thing to be thankful about was that it was also a reasonably quick method of transportation, although it certainly felt like quite a while to someone who was getting dizzier with each passing moment. Supposedly Floo travel wasn't supposed to have quite such an unpleasant effect of anybody, but Julianne did have an unfortunate tendency for motion sickness whether it was by brooms, Muggle automobiles, or even Floo powder.  
  
When she came through, she found herself in an old-fashioned kitchen. Stone floors, long wooden table, and no sign of more modern Muggle appliances. Definitely a wizarding kitchen, or some Muggle might have very strange ideas of how cooking should be done. (She herself had long been accustomed to using microwaves, electric stovetops, and toaster overs. They were actually quite convenient, and if one wasn't going to be using magic to cook anymore, why not employ all those conveniences that most Muggles couldn't do without?)  
  
And then there was a wand being pointed straight at her, by a haggard man with severely graying hair and a very odd mismatched pair of eyes. One was probably of glass, bright blue and spinning madly while the other was darker and beadier, probably the man's natural eye. From her faint memories of notable figures in the wizarding world, this was most likely the Auror Alastor Moody. As far as she could recall, that was the only wizard she'd ever heard of who had resorted to taking on a glass eye.  
  
She winced inwardly, it wasn't exactly the best welcome back to the wizarding world, and she did remember very well all the rather unpleasant things that could be done with a wand. A single word or two, and the possibilities were endless. One could, injure, maim, kill. She wouldn't put anything past that rather crazed looking man whether he was rumored to be on the side of good or not.  
  
"Don't make any sudden movements, and you have five seconds to explain who you are and how you found this place." His words were said with a rather rough, growling voice.  
  
"Ah." Julianne stammered, this was rather sudden and unexpected, as she held out the letter, "Well, this is where it wrote that I had to go to and." She'd as good as forgotten she also had a wand, but she wasn't exactly very confident in her abilities as far as defensive spells went.  
  
She'd have kissed the next person to come into the kitchen, probably after hearing her crash onto the stone floor after coming through the fireplace. It certainly distracted the person threatening her with the wand anyway. Of course, that would probably have gone under sudden movements, and the glass-eyed man was still staring at her. Not the nasty swivelling eye, though, that had spun itself to look at whoever just came through the door, if it was able to look through the back of his head anyway. When you had stepped into the magical world, one never knew.  
  
"You're Miss Julianne Adhlar I presume?" Yes. He had a much more normal voice than the one with the funny eye.  
  
"Yes, that's me." She thrust out the letter in no paticular direction, "This is the place.Er, Number 12 Grimmauld Place, I mean? I'd hate to have messed it up." Still, one had to be careful and she was probably glaring rather unhappily at both of them right now.  
  
One-eyed-man grabbed it, read it quickly, then set it aflame as Julianne just stared. Well, at least it seemed he wasn't going to do something of the sort to her anymore.  
  
- - -  
  
"Oye, what's going on?" Trevan's said in a sleepy drawl, "I thought I heard something crash through or whatnot. And what's Mad-Eye doing getting so riled up with his wand out already hexing anything that moves and half the stuff in this abysmal house that doesn't. Oh."  
  
"Trevan. Leigh?" Yes, it was little Julia, that voice was still the same if only because he had a good memory for nitpicky little things like voice, "It's been a long time." She smiled, most likely at seeing a somewhat familiar face.  
  
"If none of you mind, I'll be whisking her off, she doesn't take well to Floo travel, gets terribly sick afterwards." With that he put his right arm around her shoulders and guided her firmly toward the door, "And Mad-Eye, I'm not putting unwise trust in a relative unknown, we were close friends in our younger days."  
  
"I do not get terribly sick after Floo travel." She said quietly in her usual matter-of-fact tone, "Although it's not exactly pleasant during the ride, for me or for anyone else."  
  
"You're doing it again, you know." He stopped when they were in the hallway, still a very short distance away from the kitchen door and took his arm off of her shoulders.  
  
"What?"  
  
"That thing where you get all odd because you're nervous. It just makes other people wary. That sort of behaviour is what nearly got me hexed six ways to Sunday by ol' Mad-Eye when we first met." He grinned at the memory, "I was just trying to be friendly, but he thought it was highly suspicious."  
  
"Odd? How so?" Julianne inquired with a wry smile on her face, "I didn't notice that so much."  
  
"Oh, but let me count the ways, although I grant you it's difficult to notice unless one has consorted with you since early childhood days. You get all flustered looking, first thing and your face pales. You also push your hair back, and keep your eyes downcast." He ruffled her shoulder- legnth black hair with his hand, "You haven't changed much, I'm glad to see."  
  
"Don't do that." She gently pushed his hand away. "Is anyone else from our schooldays still around? And where are we? I didn't expect such a welcome back, what with a wand that might as well have been openly blazing pointed at my face. And who's the other, how did he know who I was?"  
  
Yes, she hadn't changed and neither had he for the most part. Trevan was somewhat glad to see that in terms of height, he could still best her by a good head and shoulders. A petty thing he knew, at this point in time when there were much more important things to worry about, but he hadn't liked being shorter than her and most girls back in his school days. (Between fifth and sixth year, he'd grown substantially taller and filled out a bit, no longer being the lanky yet dismally short scarecrow he'd been while Julianne was still attending Hogwarts.) Whereas he'd once been just another nerdy bookworm, dimiunitive yet cursed with an oversurfeit of boney limbs, he'd become the self-assured and arguably handsome Trevan he was now. She still asked too many questions, and he was still the sort to like aggravating her.  
  
"Now, now." He started ruffling her hair again, "One question at a time, Julia dear. Although since the other Julianne works far away playing Quidditch somewhere, I guess I can call you by your proper name now."  
  
"That's nice, go on please."  
  
"Alright then, I haven't the authorization to tell you much about this place, a small minority among our old school friends might drop by, I think some of them are in. this." He rubbed his chin, as if he were thinking hard, "You've met Alastor Moody and the other guy was Remus Lupin, you might have met him; he was a seventh year when we were in first, Dumbledore told him to be expecting you. Although Dumbledore should probably have told Moody about it also, as he has a nasty penchant for jinxing first and asking questions later when he thinks there might be a security risk."  
  
"I figured as much." Then she frowned slightly, as if trying to figure out what else she desperately wanted to ask, "And Trevan, who exactly fell through the Veil?"  
  
"Oh, he actually owns this charming place, it's been cleaned up nicely though, was very full of character when we first came here, it's Sirius Black." He smiled rather deviously at the shocked expression on her face, as she was most likely wondering why anyone cared to bring back a convicted murderer.  
  
Right, she'd left right after the disaster with Black's allegedly murdering all those Muggles and Peter Pettigrew in that street way back when. She hadn't been around to hear he'd long since escaped from Azkaban, and certainly had no way of hearing he'd been innocent all along. A full five seconds later, and she was still staring at him with those wide eyes and with jaw practically dropped to the ground. Shocked enough that when that horrid painting of Black's mother started screaming about 'that ungrateful monster' finally being dead and gone, Julianne didn't seem to hear.  
  
- - -  
  
Sirius Black blinked once, twice, three times. There was nothing but darkness, and an odd feeling of weightlessness. Where was this place anyway, and what was he doing here? A sort of leaden calm remained fog-like over his thoughts, as if he was exhausted beyond reason, and couldn't possibly do anything of his own accord. Not until he gave in to the shadows, and let himself rest.  
  
No, he couldn't do that just yet. Not right now, it was difficult to but he remembered what had been happening to him before the darkness had taken over. Yes, he was reasonably sure that he did remember. He remembered Bellatrix Lestrange, a cousin he'd never really liked but recognized almost immediately. They'd been dueling perilously close to an arch, and he'd fallen through when she'd managed to hit him straight-on with a curse that had emanated red light. After that there had been silence, shadows, and that bedamned sense of calm hanging over anything in his mind that resembled coherent thought.  
  
But he couldn't afford to just lie here for an eternity. There were people who still needed him, a was was going on and he had to fight, and how could he rest if Harry didn't know where he was? It would be more than his life's worth to allow his godson to blame himself for whatever plight he was currently finding himself in. No doubt, if he didn't emerge from that arch those remaining on the other side would worry. Knowing the current circumstances, they would probably assume the worst. Most likely if he didn't contact them soon, the would think that he'd. died.  
  
Knowing Harry, he'd blame himself. From all their correspondence, from all that he knew about his godson - even if it wasn't much, Harry always seemed to harbour some guilt whenever something tragic happened. Just as Sirius had been blaming himself earlier, whenever the smallest setback occurred, he always had to wonder, what if he'd been able to help? That sort of guilt had been the basis for his insisting on going with the other Order members when they realized that Harry had gone to the Department of Mysteries. Guilt was what had landed him in this position, wherever he was. Such guilt was potentially dangerous, leading even the most rational people to do rash and foolish things. Not that he'd ever been among the most rational of people. And if Harry was safe, participating in the rescue mission was hardly rash or foolish.  
  
Funny, his thoughts didn't usually wander like that. Except in the past year when he'd been ordered to stay at that horrid house with only his mother's painting and occasionally Kreacher for company or in the year before that when he'd been hiding in a cave near Hogsmeade while his godson had been competing in the Triwizard Tournament. (For the record, Buckbeak the hippogriff had been much better company than Kreacher and his mother's painting put together.)  
  
Was there anything stopping him from getting up and going back through the arch? It would be rather risky to attempt at leaving the Ministry building undetected, but at this point letting word get out that he was alive and well was most important. So that no one would have to feel any sort of guilt over him.  
  
- - -  
  
Author's Notes: The part with Sirius in it was rather weak, if I do say so myself, but around part seven or so, he'll have been extracted from beyond the Veil already, and he will be playing a much larger role. Sirius x OC (Julianne) won't appear for a while though, since it doesn't look like it's going to be a main focal point of Cursed.  
  
I'm also possessed with a sudden urge to write of Julianne's school days, focusing mainly on the 'other' Julianne, a Quidditch player referred to by her last name for the sake of not getting the two mixed up. The first part of that will come up soon, although it'll be almost wholly an OC-centric story, with mentions of MWPP and the oldest Weasley boys. (James Potter and Sirius Black are already coming to be rather bratty, a la 'Snape's Worst Memory', though that's because the story is seen through the eyes of a rival Quidditch player.  
  
I've rather come to the conclusion that Trevan and Julianne aren't going to be really MS or GS-ish in the most obvious ways at least. Trevan's not very well-respected by the canon characters because he's less than entirely friendly to them, all his work for the Order has gotten to him a bit. Julianne meanwhile, is too busy trying to distance herself from them to be 'perfect' in behaviour. Oh well, I have several more parts and two 'interludes' already in the works, although I keep on modifying them. (Although the canon romance is almost always a big no-no, but I guess it can be done alright, and we have yet to see if mine will be one of those?)  
  
Until next part that I feel has been polished enough, see you! (I forgot to thank my reviewers as of yet, and request yet more to further inflate me steadily growing ego. So please, leave a comment or two.) 


	4. Interlude Four Unpleasant Days With the ...

Disclaimers: Most of these characters, and indeed the entire world in which Cursed takes place are the intelectual property of J.K. Rowling and publishers. Even if perhaps, by the letter of the law my characters being in a work of fanfiction might not technically be my property, I'd like to think that the spirit of the law makes them mine anyway. Not that I can stop you effectively if you take them.  
  
- - -  
  
Interlude  
  
Four (Unpleasant) Days With the Order of the Pheonix  
  
- - -  
  
It had been nearly four entire days since Julianne had come to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and she was beginning to be rather impatient. At least they'd had the decency to let her go home and get some things, as if preparing for an extended stay. That paticular thought had not appealed to her very much, especially in light of the total occurrences of the four days.  
  
Supposedly she was staying over because Dumbledore was much too busy to give her the details on the request to soul-chase for Sirius Black and return him physically from beyond the Veil. Perhaps it was unfair of her to be so unforgiving of a person who had so many more crucial issues on his hands but it was a bit upsetting to be enduring such a disruption in her normally well-ordered life for his polite request.  
  
Judging from the many copies of the past many weeks' Daily Prophet she'd perused through, there was another Great War getting started. Just her luck to have missed out on the short period of peace for the wizarding world that had just been so cruelly shattered by the plans of Lord You-Know-Who and his followers. Considering that her last vivid memories from the wizarding world were of all the horrors the 'Dark Lord' had wrought, especially the indirect effect it had on her cousin Pyrane it wasn't all that surprising that Julianne still winced visibly whenever his name was mentioned. At least it seemed to be a sentiment shared by many here. Although for every person who flinched away at hearing the name, there was one who insisted on saying it at every possible moment.  
  
She remembered enough of what her more politically liberal Ravenclaw friends used to say to know that sometimes it was best to read between the lines of the Daily Prophet. They had written enough misinformation on cursed families (whenever the more earth-shaking current events were coming in too slowly), occasionally her own during the fifteen years she'd lived in that world for her to know that it wasn't always the most reliable source of accurate information. However, reconstructing those articles in any possible way still resulted in the same solid conclusion. That these were truly dark days for the world she'd once lived in.  
  
Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody had ordered a 'guard' to accompany her back home to pack. Either bcause there was some reason in his paranoid mind that she might be attacked or because he suspected she was a double-agent of some sort. Julianne wasn't exactly sure which it was. It was a rather nervewracking experience being anywhere near the Auror. Mostly because of the spinning magical eye. Seeing Moody take the eye out for cleaning was enough to send Julianne pratically running out of a room when he so much as asked for a glass of water. Seeing the enchanted eye spinning about madly in said glass of water was no picnic either.  
  
Nymphadora Tonks hadn't been at all obstinate about being assigned as an escort, and she was pleasant enough. She was quite gifted by anyone's standards, it appeared, and the talents of an Animorphamagus came without a curse. An entirely unique girl too, insisting that Julianne call her 'Tonks' instead of Nymphadora. Perhaps a name like Nymphadora was rather off-putting, but most girls would rather be called anything than just 'Tonks'. If those had been Julianne's only choices for names, she would have gotten a legal name change no matter how long it took to be processed at the Ministry. (Being the monument to swift efficiency that it was, the current record for processing speed for minor issues like name changes stood at something around a year and a half. Since one had to stay at the Ministry headquarters for the entire duration of the process of be bumped off the queue, it didn't come as much of a surprise that few people got their names changed in the wizarding world.) As it was, Julianne didn't mind her name all that much, although she occasionally wanted to give Trevan a slap to the head for calling her 'little' or 'dear' Julia.  
  
Getting to the point, she'd waited politely in the living room when Julianne had gone upstairs to pack for a possible extended stay. Julianne had smiled genuinely at seeing the other witch's interest in her Muggle things, like the laptop computer and the ceiling fan. Come to think of it, the staid beiges, tans, and whites she'd decorated in probably weren't seen all that much in the wizarding world either.  
  
Dragging out her old school trunk, she frowned at how much smaller it seemed to her now. Still, it would do since she was definitely not planning to stay long. Just because it would have been rude to keep Tonks waiting for longer than she had to, Julianne tried her hand at magic again. Simple spells, just to pack her clothes quickly but neatly in the trunk. Her wand seemed to be a bit more cooperative than when it'd first been taken back out, leaving half of the clothes folded in the trunk but sending the rest to be strewn in a mess across the floor. Not too shabby for a second try at spell-work. Although it did somewhat defeat her purpose of speeding up the packing, since it did take some time to gather up and fold all the clothes again. She sighed heavily as she considered whether or not she should take the laptop from her living room. Ultimately, she decided against it. Finding a socket for the eletric plug wouldn't be so easy in what seemed quite conclusively to be a wizard-built house. (The permanently stuck painting and Black family tree rendered it useless for anything else anyway, short of burning the whole place down.)  
  
Now what sort of charm could make taking the trunk downstairs an easier and quieter task? "Wingardium Leviosa!" She said with a wave of her wand.  
  
Perhaps she had pronounced it wrong, or maybe her swish and flick maneuvers were more rusty than she thought. It certainly did levitate, but it also moved in the opposite of the desired direction, knocking right into her and sending her to the floor to land in a rather undignified heap in the second-floor hallway. It hadn't hit her too hard but she muttered a string of unladylike expletives under her breath anyway. At least the whole accident hadn't generated too much noise, Tonks wasn't rushing up to see whether or not Julianne had managed to kill herself with a misfired spell.  
  
Things had gone downhill from there. The only thing to be really thankful for was that because of the overabundance of empty rooms, she didn't have to share. Not that Julianne had anything against roommates, after all her Hogwarts years had placed her in a dormitory with four girls who occasionally acted all too much like teenage girls every once in a while but she hadn't ever felt too much desire to eviscerate them. It was just that she wasn't sure she was very ready to be spending too much time with a full-blown witch as a roommate yet. (The fact that the most simple charms and spells were giving her so much trouble didn't help that general intolerance.) Under such living arrangements, if things ever got to be too much, she'd just flee in here and think longingly of the quiet life she had so foolishly left behind, if only for a few days.  
  
Even if she found Trevan's constant inane chatter to be on the side of aggravating sometimes, she always missed him when he was off on business. It was hard to not have a somewhat familiar face around. Remus Lupin was alright, he hadn't explained much but he was relatively calm and predictable when compared to some of the other noticeable personalities that were constantly breezing in and out.  
  
One major disadvantage to the apparent secrecy yet easy accesibility to their current location. People rang the doorbell - quite often, and even if there were no door-to-door salesmen the doorbell was the direct cause of a rather undesirable effect. It woke up the painting of the twisted woman (a thousand times worse than poor Pyrane at her worst state) and she would then commence with ranting anew. Some of the mudblood slander was probably directed to Julianne though, as people of her family tended to marry Muggles or Muggle-born since the Adhlar name was occasionally associated with bad luck of the potentially fatal sort. Being associated with death, even revival from it before it had completed it's work, did wonders for one's reputation.  
  
First day had brought two red-haired boys into the immediate vicinity. Twins they said, not that the two hadn't looked the part. Fred and George Weasley, may there be a plague on both their houses. (On second thought, they're part of the same one.) Julianne had known Weasleys once though, she was sure there had been a William and a Charles Weasley, both of Gryffindor during her school days. She had never met the other one, but after meeting Fred and George she was reasonably sure she didn't ever wish to, if those two were any sort of indicative for what the rest of the family was like.  
  
They'd started out alright, introducing themselves politely with the leisurely air of people who weren't all that busy. Most people who occasionally popped in here at Number 12 often did not have time for such indulgences, and after general introductions would go off on their business much like Trevan had. Both had been dressed in jackets of rather loud green reptile skin of some sort, which didn't match that well with their bright red hair, but they'd had a nice easygoing expression on their very closely matched faces. (Julianne was still a bit put off at how they could wear the skin of some poor creature.) At breakfast, they'd handed her a sweet and in trying to be polite, Julianne had taken a small bite of it.  
  
Shortly thereafter, her nose had started to bleed quite profusely. She'd given out a rather undignified shriek when it had first started, it being far too sudden, something that caused some confusion when everyone currently situated in the house had come to the kitchen, brandishing their wands thinking that one of their number was being attacked. Julianne had been thoroughly embarressed.  
  
The rest of that day had been spent in a panic trying to get the constant nosebleed to stop. It had been rather alarming, to say the least, to see a steady trickle of blood coming out. She'd done everything she could think off, and been desperately trying to calculate how long it would be before she bled to death through the nose. Finally, one of the twins had taken pity and given her something else, another prank sweet to stop it. After eyeing it and the offerer with suspicion, difficult as that was to manage when holding a wad of napkins under your nose, she's eaten it and thankfully the twin hadn't lied. Although because of that incident, Julianne now viewed every bit of food from this place with similar suspicion, a she also heaved a great sigh of relief when Fred and George left for places unknown the next day.  
  
Other introductions had been much less eventful. Moody wasn't that bad, she admitted grudgingly, even if she had to come to the conclusion that too many altercations with forces of darkness hadn't been too easy on his mental health. Tonks was still a very nice person, and the only one to incite a genuine smile or laughter from her. Metamorphmagus powers seemed to be a lot of fun and she used them well. Lupin was still looking like a reasonably level-headed person. Julianne had also been introduced to a matronly woman named Molly Weasley, who'd said that Julianne looked 'a tad peaky' and Mundungus Fletcher who she categorized as being rather odd. ( He'd tried to sell her Ashwinder eggs, for cheap, he declared, but Julianne hadn't been in possession of any wizarding currency, either way she no longer remembered the properties of Ashwinder eggs.) Then Mrs. Weasley had as good as thrown him out, citing as a reason the fact that those were liable to burst into flame at any time.  
  
Yesterday, Trevan had come back for a short stint, and she supposed things had been a middling average from there on out. He'd brought her an assortment of books, saying with a brotherly smirk that he knew how bored she would get, with nothing to do, yet having to sit around and wait. Well, she'd been resigned to waiting until Dumbledore had the time to explain things further. Trevan was right, of course, she had been bored. Meeting too many new people distressed her marginally, and she had taken to hiding in the room she'd been assigned. Although, she noticed with some annoyance, he'd brought her quite the motley assortment from some Wizarding bookstore's bargain-bin selevtion that included many things she wouldn't normally touch out of intellectual snobbery. Gilderoy Lockhart, romance novels that made her blush madly a chapter or two in yet were at some point Witch Weekly bestsellers, and some older edition schoolbooks she remembered all too well. Still, boredom was boredom, and she'd gotten through most of it.  
  
Then there was today, Albus Dumbledore finally had the time to explain things. Finally, Julianne would know why exactly she was going to help out someone who was a convicted criminal and know the whole story behind the current plight of Sirius Black.  
  
- - -  
  
Author's notes: In which we have just found out that while Julianne generally acts very polite, when she's in a less than generous mood her opinion of others suffers. This is moving at about a snails pace, but I haven't ran out of steam yet! Sirius will be brought back soon, around part 9 or so.  
  
Although the more I write, the more far-fetched the dynamics of the actual Veil and soul-chasing become. (By the technicalities set by yours truly, with no amount of twisting can it be remotely possible to pull anyone physically through the Veil, don't we all just love the universal theme of you can do anything if you set your mind to it? That's a major theme of Cursed, whether it spawns a multi-part saga or not, sufficient will begets endless possibility.) I can't resist putting in a typeface. ^_~  
  
I'm not sure if I should include a sort of Gatekeeper in the world beyond the Veil, although it's one that has extremely limited means of communication. (Quote that part without too much spoiling too much. "Far from the angelic old St. Peter of some major Muggle theology, this 'Gatekeeper' mentioned in others' accounts, was a sort of being that was clearly there yet without substantial form." Also, on a slightly unrelated note, are there any people interested in beta-reading? Or who know a source for a beta?  
  
In response to MWPP and Lily, and with gratitude, indeed, to all of my generous reviewers so far, I'm glad you like it so far, and I'm very uncertain as to whether or not there will actually be SBxOC in this, it all depends on how it goes in later parts and when we actually see Sirius returned. As it is, it looks like the best they can do is a platonic friendship with. Also, thanks again for reviewing and I'd obviously love to hear any comments on this chapter too. 


	5. Part 3 Explanations Long Overdue

Disclaimers: The world of Harry Potter belongs solely to J.K. Rowling and whatever publishers it's been sold/licensed to. Like each and every other fan-author I claim no ownership. Perhaps I shall leave these out the next time I post, for these 'disclaimers' are annoying to write.  
  
- - -  
  
Part 3  
  
Explanations Long Overdue  
  
- - -  
  
She stepped into a drawing room on the first floor, frowning at the horrid tapestry that almost entirely covered one wall. A family tree of "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black" all the way from what seemed to be the Middle Ages except for a few burnt holes here and there where certain names seemed to have once been. Oh, so they were one of those pure- blood crazed families. The Adhlar family had an extensive family tree somewhere back at her paternal great-grandfather's manor but it wasn't very well-maintained; filled with blank spaces where relatives had run off to integrate themselves into the Muggle work. Although no one could really consider the Adhlars a pure-blooded family since they did usually get married to Muggle-born witches and wizards to whom the stigma of cursed blood was not as much of a deterrent. The last family patriarch who'd given a care to things such as maintaining the purity of Adhlar blood had died more than sixty years before her father's time. "Toujours Pur", was written under it's heading, whatever that meant. Was it Latin? Or French? The rather tarnished gold thread of the tapestry still held a rather sinister glint to her eyes.  
  
How quaint, she thought to herself. Another reminder of the life she was still trying with little success to serperate herself from. Staying here with people banging in and out at all hours for the last few days didn't leave her in the most generous of moods. She would be especially agitated when she thought of the state her small but carefully kept garden would be in. Weeds tended to sprout up like mad in the summertime.  
  
There wasn't a single Adhlar to be seen anywhere on the Black family tree though. More respectable wizarding families tended to stay far away from families known to be cursed as far as suitable matches for their children went. Adhlars especially, even if their work was to prevent death in those on the brink, were probably on balance with Thestrals or Grims as far as reputation for bad luck went. Considering what tended to happen to them after they used their gifts, it was obvious why. The idea that their spouse and children would lose both sanity and health if they used their birthright wasn't an easy idea for anyone to swallow. Ah, there was Dumbledore, sitting in a ratty old green-upholstered armchair in the corner, near an old scratched-up writing desk.  
  
"Good day, Miss Adhlar. sherbert lemon?" Yes, it was definitely Albus Dumbledore, but looking a bit less exhausted than he had four days ago.  
  
Julianne glared at it with obvious suspicion bordering on hostility, remembering the nosebleed incident from three days before. After Fred and George Weasley's 'Nosebleed Nougat', she had as a matter of course decided to stay far away from all sweets offered to her by any known witch or wizard.  
  
"Don't worry, it's just a Muggle candy that I happen to be quite partial to, and not one of the Weasley twins' delightful creations." He said the last bit with what seemed to be sincerity, and with a twinkle in his eye.  
  
"Alright then." She took it and placed it in her mouth, though she braced herself, still half-expecting to suddenly be covered in boils or something of the sort, though she took some comfort in the fact that he seemed to be eating one also. (Could that be a dependable indication for the safety of the lemon drop though?)  
  
"I'm guessing you have many questions that you'd like to ask. I'll do my sincere best to answer as many as I can. However, you must forgive me if there are some things that cannot be disclosed to you yet." That grave expression on his face from four days ago had returned.  
  
She nodded, "I understand. It's already apparent that many things have happened since I left."  
  
"I suppose I have to start with telling you that Sirius Black is, despite all the Ministry's claims, an innocent man."  
  
- - -  
  
"So, what did our old Headmaster deign to explain to you?" Trevan Leigh leaned against the wall lazily, "Enough for you to make a decision?"  
  
She looked him in the eye, and gave him a dirty look. Brown eyes to gray, those brown eyes narrowing even more as she appraised him up and down. Trevan's already broad grin grew wider as Julianne stayed completely silent.  
  
He was perfectly aware he didn't look like he usually did. As a result of being set to watch a wizard who lived among rather odd Muggles, Trevan had decided that the best way to blend in and not be noticed was to look just like those decidedly odd Muggles. The last time Trevan had come by to Number 12, he'd been the very picture of the standard wizard. Dark robes in a sedate black over collared shirt and slacks, with his somwhat long sandy blond hair tied back neatly, and a pair of reading glasses had completed the mature businesslike appearance he generally adopted. Now he'd thrown that dressing style entirely out through the window, and looked significantly different. His hair was streaked with red and a part of it was combed over the left side of his face. He wore closely cut Muggle clothing and an oversurfeit of tasteless, blocky jewelry.  
  
"First thing, I don't believe you quite got the teenage pseudo-punk image down right." She said cooly, "But you're right, he didn't tell me much, just that it was potentially dangerous if too much of what was going on managed to leak out."  
  
"Nothing you couldn't conclude reasonably well on your own?" He inquired, taking the oppurtunity to ruffle her hair as he drew closer to her, "I'd guess that you'd rather be told more anyway."  
  
"He did imply that whatever was being done by the people here, it wasn't with the full cooperation of the Ministry." She busied herself with trying to keep his hand off the top of her head. "And that Sirius Black was innocent and quite important to someone whose had it worse than anyone deserves."  
  
"Oh. Harry Potter?" It was hard to sound nonchalant about a child who'd been touted as a hero during her last days in the wizarding world, Julianne still thought of him as the baby mentioned as being the downfall of He-Who- Must-Not-Be-Named, and not as whatever person he might have grown up into by now.  
  
"Yes, he focused a bit on the fact that this wasn't all that important, my decision on it, I mean to the outcome of the current conflict with You- Know-Who, but that the people this would matter most to deserve better than life's thrown at them, even if it isn't fully my responsibility." Confident that her shoulder-length dark hair was once again lying flat, she folded her arms and sighed, "But I suppose because of my own foolishness, I was going to accept with or without knowing that."  
  
Trevan nodded slowly, as if agreeing, "If it counts for anything, I think that's the right decision. Harry, for all that he seems to be a bit bratty sometimes, is someone whose been faced with more than anyone his age should have to deal with. If you succeed, I know it'd at least help allay his guilt that Sirius fell through the Veil while trying to save him."  
  
"It does count to me." She smiled slightly, but if past experience was anything to go on, he was sure it was a 'true' smile. "Although I don't know if it's possible, and certainly don't know how to go about it."  
  
Both started at the sound of the drawing room door opening. It was only Dumbledore, though. Of course, Trevan gave himself a mental slap, he did have to come out here sometime and it seemed that Apparition just wasn't done while within Number 12 Grimmauld Place. (Supposedly Apparition had initally been strongly discouraged as one never knew when the Ministry might be monitering it, and even now that they were not as openly defying the Ministry. Force of habit was a difficult thing to break out of.)  
  
Still, it was good to see that their leader of sorts was looking far better than he had for a while. The events of the many past months, and indeed ever since Voldemort first appeared so many years ago, had taken a severe toll on the Order's leader. Age was a very undefined thing for those of wizarding blood. One's appearance and physical condition were more related to the amount of strain they placed on themselves than anything else. At more than a century old, Dumbledore had probably done enough just in the past fifteen years or so for someone twice that age. Yet, Trevan had to hand it to the man, for all that he maintained a long white hair and a beard he usually looked quite sprightly, for all that he must have uncountable amounts of important things always on his mind. There were definitely many good reasons why the Dark Lord feared Dumbledore.  
  
"If I may give some advice as your past headmaster." His eyes had that familiar twinkle in them. "I would highly recommend searching out the old family journals kept at Adhlar manor. Some of your ancestors kept very meticulous records of when and how they used the Adhlar gift." As he walked down the hall, he added, "Although searching them out might not be an easy task."  
  
Trevan smiled broadly at Julianne, "Sounds like we're on for a sort of vacation trip then. The people I'd been shadowing were getting to be such a bore. What's with the long face?"  
  
"Who said you were coming anyway? It was only a suggestion." Then she frowned slightly more, "Although if I want to try it, he's correct that it'll be a difficult task."  
  
"How so? You just breeze in to the family library, get the books and come out, sounds very simple and straightforward to me."  
  
- - -  
  
Julianne scowled rather unpleasantly at nothing in paticular while thinking of the old house that was generally designated 'Adhlar manor' simply because since a long ago family patriarch had bought it, it'd been shunted down through the family to any Adhlar offshoot who would take it. (Accepting the house pretty much meant one was still on decent terms with the wizarding world, or wanted to live the life of a recluse. It was out in the middle of nowhere, covered thoroughly with every spell-based protection ever devised, and generally not convenient for those attempting to live a more Muggle-like lifestyle.)  
  
It had been uninhabited and generally gathering dust since her father and mother had upped and finally left the wizarding world ten years ago, a short five years after their daughter had turned her back on aforementioned world. Ten years worth of dust wouldn't make searching out 'old family journals' a very pleasant task. Also, her both of her parents had been rather indecisive in their decorating and arranging, and it was as good as anyone's guess where those 'old family journals' would be.  
  
"I don't think it will be quite that simple." Julianne muttered under her breath, "Mother and father dear were notoriously inconsistent with putting things away in their proper place."  
  
"So you plan to follow his advice?" Curse that amused expression in Trevan's eyes, it made her nervous when his eyes sparkled like that. "Good for you, I was beginning to think you had an inability for taking good advice."  
  
"I suppose I will, since I don't have the faintest idea how I'm going to go about bringing anything back through 'Soul-chasing'. Miuch less someone who's literally fallen through." She glared at him, thinking that he wasn't taking the whole mess as seriously as was necessary. "What do you mean I can't take decent advice?"  
  
"Oh nothing, just remembering your foolish persistence in all things back in our Hogwarts days." He smiled in a way he thought of as myseterious, "You've always been one who had to find out everything for yourself, whether it would be a mistake or not."  
  
"Why would you say that?"  
  
"I'll take an example from, say, our fourth year. All of us, your good friends, told you how unwise it would be to critique Professor Brandt's opinions on the mandatory registration of human-like species by the Ministry. Yet you still started what ended up being a rather heated debate supplanted by noisy verbal conflict, and got yourself and all students who spoke up that day into detention for impertinence in a class setting. " He chuckled slightly at the memory, "I think that was almost all of us from Ravenclaw, though, no exception for yours truly. We're not so much wise as prone to being strong in our own opinions sometimes."  
  
"Oh." She sighed heavily, "He was a bigot though, for all that he knew about countercurses, he was rather narrowminded. You know very well that he personally thought of the old Cursed families as human-like creatures rather than human. Curse in this case not to be confused with the mundane sort cast by wands and spells and such."  
  
Trevan nodded gravely, " It's what happens sometimes when some end up being different from the norm, I suppose. That's why people like your relatives don't tend to stick around in the wizarding world though, isn't it? You could even consider the Adhlar curse a rather passive one, and the supposed Leigh curse likewise. We don't really even understand how it is for those from those Cursed with things of less severe nature."  
  
That was certainly true. In the years before their time, or even the times of their parents and grandparents there had been far more whose family lines could be considered rather chronically cursed. And not even with things that one could choose whether or not to accept, as with the Adhlar curse or even with subconcious tendencies such as with the Leigh 'curse'. The theory was that since power had a price, it was only natural that a certain percentage of wizarding families would be taxed to some extent. How some of those afflictions were passed on through heredity, was anyone's guess. Most families cursed more blatantly with a highly debilitating effect had died out in days past, with only fantastical stories told about their great powers - and the price they all inevitably paid.  
  
Most inherited curses seemed to follow a certain pattern. Those of such an unfortunate family would be given an ability, sometimes one that couldn't be controlled, yet there would also be an unpleasant side effect to balance it out. (One should note that the Leigh family is not actually Cursed as such, the fact that they are registered to that end is because of the vague Ministry standards for determining a familial curse.)  
  
That was what the Ministry's 'Registry of Cursed Families' had been intended for, a way to keep tabs on the most dangerous powers of the wizarding world, in lieu of the better interests of society. Although it wasn't as if the Registry ever managed to serve it's own purpose, any of the Cursed abilities that were truly dangerous were often the gift and price in and of itself, being nearly impossible to control. Others, with more passive curses like that on her own family were nowhere near foolish enough to allow outsiders to track their abilities. Still others who had never desired whatever gift their inborn curse left them with could feel nothing but shame that they were always to be considered potential criminals by their brethren and were eventually driven to leave to leave the world that could never truly trust them.  
  
"It doesn't seem to matter, the severity of it. It's the same curse of sorts for anything that's unique in a world of the mundane." She sighed heavily, "Similar things happen to those who are more or less different, whether it be in the Muggle world or ours."  
  
Why was she considering the wizarding world home again, when she'd been so anxious to keep her distance from it the day before? Possibly because this was a moment she felt that old comraderie with someone again, a sort of connectivity that was rare indeed. This was as close to those happy, naïve days of childhood as she could get in the present. Suddenly those joyful memories could be vibrant and alive in her mind again. When she could be discussing the ins and outs of the world with her philosophy- minded Ravenclaw friends, prominent among them the 'other' Julianne and Trevan. Trying to convince everyone else whether something being done was morally justified or not even while they couldn't possibly have a clue the real implications of that 'something'. With that 'something' usually being some controversial decision of their government. (The Ministry had a maddening love for introducing new legislation that wasn't always fair to all parties involved.)  
  
And then Trevan had to break the mood by giving her a mock slap to the top of her head. Whether or not it was meant to be a friendly gesture, it hurt. He was no longer the small and scrawny boy Julianne had known in her fifth year at Hogwarts. Whenever the change had taken place, he was now different enough that he didn't really seem to know his own stregnth. Even such thoughts only heralded more nostalgic thoughts. In contrast to Trevan's growing taller, more muscular, and generally more attractive Julianne decided that she hadn't changed any significant amount. She wasn't much taller, hadn't really ever 'filled out', and her face had stayed much the same since her teenage years.  
  
"Dear little Julia, you're waxing philosolphical again with the eclectic wording of basic things and such. It's quite off-putting." He was still grinning in his obstinately cheerful fashion. "You should only talk like that when you're trying to intimidate others, not when with a brotherly companion whose company you enjoy."  
  
She returned his little 'mock slap' though she had to stand on her toes and reach out her arm a bit to get his head. It was a rather difficult movement, and admittedly she wasn't exactly strong physically, so obviously he didn't even flinch. It was all in the spirit of friendship, of course. They'd never resorted to such raucous behaviour back in their younger days, preferring to toss books and scrap parchment at each other when things got slightly testy, being the properly studious Ravenclaw children they'd been made. Julianne almost giggled out loud at the memory of how Trevan was always getting the most things thrown at him, especially in their first year when he'd easily been the most prone to joking at inoppurtune moments of all their classmates. That sort of behaviour had stopped off though, when Trevan got better at Levitation Charms with his own little twist that left all their things hanging in the air beyond their reach until Trevan was ready to forgive them.  
  
He'd really been the most delightfully unique boy back then, although Julianne was absent for his last two years of Hogwarts schooling. While he was certainly smart and wise for his years, as was the Ravenclaw trademark, he'd had a very healthy sense of humor and never failed to draw the more introverted Julianne out of her own self-made shell. Around Trevan even she could start chattering on madly like just another teenaged girl, about anything at all.  
  
"Whoever said I liked having you around, you silly silly. person." She smiled then, "I can't really call you a silly boy anymore, when you're so much taller than me."  
  
"You obviously don't want to shatter my poor soul, Julia dear. I would never manage to recover from it, especially considering that you rejected me so badly back at school." Trevan winked at her, and tweaked her nose, "By jove, I don't believe I've fully recuperated from that wound to the heart quite yet. This brings back old pains, if you would believe it."  
  
Julianne scowled at him, or rather, she tried to, "What sort of nonsense have you taken to spouting, Leigh? I never rejected you back then, you were always after one of the other girls." She tried making her expression thoughtful, as if she were trying to remember something, "Who was it again? Marie Beckett? Kathy Lonigan?"  
  
Now he put his hands over his heart, as if she'd fired an arrow or bullet into him, "You would me deep, Adhlar. Despite my other dalliances and flirtatious nature, you know very well I always had my mind set on you."  
  
She sighed, shaking her head, "What should I do with you, hopeless romantic? Or should I call up Diane Winston from Gryffindor? As I recall it, you fancied her for the longest time back when we were in third year. Provided I don't discover the whereabouts of Eithine Eoghan, Hufflepuff prefect of our day, first though, because she's the one you went to that positively boring Yule Ball with. "  
  
- - -  
  
Author's Notes : Thanks to all reviewers once again, especially Lily, and no Harry most likely won't appear except for perhaps a small bit-part after the resurrection of Sirius. (It's not technically a resurrection, though, for I hold with the belief that whatever happened to Sirius of the Potter- verse, it's not death in it's usual form.  
  
His reaction will be a very difficult thing to write, although I do have an explanation for why even the wisest of people (Dumbledore) have insisted he is quite conclusively dead. Basically, to prevent the instillation of false hope, which hurts more than it can help. Especially since the whole soul- chasing thing is a matter of will that can not be guaranteed for something so unique as a physical extraction as well as pulling the 'spirit' or 'soul' back.  
  
Of course, I shall leave you with the usual request for reviews to feed my growing ego-monster. Because reviews are nice to receive, no matter what their nature. 


	6. Part 4 Of an Uneventful Excursion

Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling created the world of Harry Potter, in which this story takes place. She also created a large number of the characters, and her publishers have license of the whole lot. I on the other hand am just writing my own little stories based on that world and those characters for entertainment purposes. Go me, I'd say 'don't sue' but it's all been said before. 

- - -

Part 4

Of an Uneventful Excursion

- - -

  She scowled at the lot of them, imagining that she was looking rather ferocious and intimidating. Imagining it, because in the end she probably wasn't. Hunting out things that might have been thrown out years ago wasn't going to be overly enjoyable, and having others accompanying her just made it less so. 

  Maybe she could grudgingly trust them when they said that it was only their job to protect her in case something entirely unexpected but rather unfortunate happened while she was searching out the old family journals at the Adhlar manor. They seemed sincere enough in that, and they weren't watching her anywhere near close enough if they thought she was going to double-cross them and reveal a location full of somewhat good wizards to the forces of darkness. However, it didn't make her overjoyed with the ramifications of the whole situation.

  Who were they then? Remus Lupin, who didn't seem any happier about the entire arrangement than she was and Trevan Leigh who was acting far too cheerful as usual. This was the sort of assignment that should have any proper warrior of general goodness up in arms and demanding something more befitting their duty, something of a more heroic nature than protecting someone who wasn't really important in the whole scheme of things. Sure, if she succeeded on all counts than one of their comrades could be returned from a death-like fate, but that was only a small chance. Julianne didn't really understand why there was any need for one escort, much less two. 

  After glaring at the two of them for another moment, she turned back to the task of trying to open the door. Maybe it would have been simpler to just cast 'Allohomora' and be done with it, but Julianne wasn't about to exhibit her rusty charms any more than she had to. Besides, she'd done that on the front gate, and it'd taken four very embarressing attempts.  (The lock mechanism of the gate was now internally damaged to the point that it would not be functional until someone fixed it.) Luckily she still had a house key from the days when her mother and father had inherited ownership of the 'manor', although if it was anything like the situation with the gate, than it wasn't really going to work. 

  "Why can't this just open?!" She muttered under her breath as she attempted to turn the key, first this way, than that.

  "Julia! Need any help with that?" Julianne glared at Trevan as he stepped forward and put his hand on her right shoulder, as if in a protective gesture, "All it takes is a simple charm, you know…"

  Julianne granted him her best imitation of a snarl and twisted her face into an enraged sort of expression, as close as she could get to a tiger or some other predatory animal getting ready to pounce. He is turn just smiled his most cheerful and cheeky smile possible.  

  "Ah…"  Remus Lupin looked a bit confused and rather uncomfortable, as if he wasn't sure whether or not it would be better to interject before the two were literally at each other's throats.

  Suddenly, all desire to give Trevan what for vanished entirely. It was the sort of thing that had plagued her since childhood, in that she was uncomfortable acting 'normal' around those she didn't know well. Immediately, and she could practically feel her face settiling into a neutral half-smile to bely her 'to outsiders' self, Julianne calmed down and turned to address Remus.

  "I'm sorry. We must appear entirely immature to you. Please accept my apologies for the distraction." To complete the entire polite mask she put on, she half-bowed clumsily, before turning back to the door, wand raised to attempt 'Allohomora'. 

  Leaving him no room to make any sort of reply, of course. This was always the way Julianne tried to deal with those she barely knew. It was truly a wonder how she managed to build and sustain friendships at all. Sometimes she could just 'click' with a person, like Trevan and her closer friends from school days, and let down her guard. But most of the time, it seemed that she would remain the distantly courteous Julianne Adhlar who didn't make any attempts at unnecessary socialization. After meeting up with that unaccomodating behavior time and time again, most would give up the prospect of ever becoming closer to her, most just deciding she was too 'shy' to befriend them. Still others would be frustrated enough to think she was arrogant beyond explanation, a person who wouldn't even exchange basic pleasantries because she thought herself too high and mighty for such things. 

  It took only two attempts before the door swung open this time. Perhaps she was improving a bit with simple spells and charms. Fifteen years of disuse could make anyone's spell ability rusty. Her wand seemed to be more cooperative anyway, there hadn't been any more incidents like the one with her trunk and 'Wingardium Leviosa'.  (Let it be known that she did later realize that the 'Locomoter' spell was the correct one when a person desired to move their heavy luggage in a magical fashion.) 

  "I expect it'll be rather dusty." Trevan stated unnecesarily as Julianne took a first cautious step into the entrance hall. "Want me to cast some cleaning spells on the place before we go hunting for those family journals of yours? It'll take a bit of effort, but I think I can get a considerable chunk of the house free of dust."

  "Thank you, but no, it's not that bad for ten year's worth I think." She walked in further, and the two other men followed her inside. 

- - -

  Remus Lupin was normally the polite and tolerant sort, but being assigned to such a seemingly pointless task wasn't exactly high on his list of things that he wanted to do. Certainly there had been some justification explained when it'd been assigned to him, but that was easy to forget that when there was nothing but the monotony of hallways, dust, and shadows surrounding him with no sign of trouble. 

  He and Trevan had tried assisting Julianne Adhlar the first time she'd struggled with a slightly out of reach box, but she'd given them both a slightly reproachful stare and told them quietly that she didn't want to be a burden. As if she could be any more of a burden, with both of them assigned to watching her she might as well ask them to help her out. Wandering through hallways that led rooms which had been in disuse for so long was certainly not among the most interesting of pastimes. 

  "I saw that Julia dear's public front was somewhat perplexing to you."  Trevan Leigh began conversationally, "Don't mind it, it's not you personally that makes her uncomfortable, it's just about anyone she hasn't known for a couple of years."

  Trevan Leigh and Julianne Adhlar were rather unlike most of the people Remus had been interacting with these days. Or even from anyone he'd ever really had regular contact with. Whether it was from his school days – Trevan and Julianne were certainly not the easygoing youths of his 'Marauder' days, from his lonely life after all his old friends had been estranged from him in one unfortunate way or another, to the Order of the Pheonix he was part of now, Trevan and Julianne weren't quite like any of them. 

  First off, even if Trevan was a member of some importance in the Order, always running off on missions of a rather murky nature, even if he publically proclaimed that they were all of the more 'boring and mundane' sort, he wasn't very well-respected in that paticular circle. The general consensus was that he was a rather dim, if somewhat charming young man, although Tonks and Bill Weasely seemed to get along famously with him when they happened to be at headquarters while Trevan was. (Possibly because they had gone to Hogwarts at about the same time, though Bill and Tonk were around Trevan's age, Bill two years older, Tonks a bit younger.) He actually remembered Trevan's sorting, from when he himself had been in his seventh year. He's been smaller and rather more stick-like then, very short and awkward looking at eleven years old. Still, while Remus was by no means an ace spy with extraordinary perception as some others at the Order might be, there were some minor inconsistencies to the 'foolish prettyboy' image he seemed very intent of preserving. There were moments where a rather shrewd glint alighted in his slate gray eyes, and where he seemed rather more focused than he normally seemed to be.

  Julianne Adhlar was a bit more confusing. He actually remembered her sorting too. There'd been another Julianne right before her down the alphabetically ordered list of incoming first-years. (Acker, Julianne and Adhlar, Julianne had both been placed into Ravenclaw.) Besides that, he'd never seen the dimiunitive black-haired girl in Hogwarts at all. From the short time he'd known her, most of what he knew about her was hearsay.  Mostly that she was gifted yet cursed in the way that all of the Adhlar bloodline were. It wasn't something that widely known, that anyone who was born of their family had the capability to 'soul-chase' or bring back an individual from that line just before true death, sometimes more than once even, but only at great price. Cursed, and not the way that happened with the waving of a wand and the exclamation of arcane words.

  Remus had known Pyrane Adhlar, a second cousin of Julianne's that apparently had also possessed this gift very briefly during the first 'Great War' against Voldemort. Most of what he knew about the woman was also from hearsay, that some Aurors would be forever indebted to her seeing as she had 'soul-chased' to bring them back from almost certain death. She'd been a very cheerful, friendly woman, but whatever had happened to her since their brief meeting by chance, her life had come to a rather crashing halt some months later. It was one of those things that started coming up in conversation around him, often with murmurings of 'that poor dear' and such. Rumors flitting about that she'd gone mad and fell chronically sick to boot, and that she hadn't come out of St. Mungo's since. Rumors that had been entirely true, as he would find out later on when more reliable sources mentioned it in passing.

  But Julianne didn't show any signs of being anything like Pyrane, at least in personality and attitude toward others. While it seemed rather clear that she was very close to Trevan Leigh, she didn't seem quite normal around others. That brittle and slightly distant façade was rather obvious in that it couldn't really be any stable person's true personality. If she was really like that for the entirety of her time, she'd be a complete recluse with no human companionship at all. 

  "I suppose it does." Remus Lupin shrugged slightly, "At least, she seems to be rather disconcerted by our presence, or rather mine." Well, a slight query couldn't hurt in trying to better figure out Trevan and Julianne, "Are the two of you very close? She seems to be very well-acquainted with you, enough to let her guard down, at least."

  Trevan's icy gray stare seemed to pierce his mind for a moment, as he kept his eyes on Lupin's with an air of speculation. Apparently he percieved an ulterior motive in Lupin's innocent query, that it was more than just perfunctory small talk between colleagues stuck in the same place. 

  Finally, he nodded, "Yes, we were very close friends in our Hogwarts days, and that just seems to be carrying over now, even despite the fact that we hadn't been in contact until about five days ago when she came in through the fireplace." He paused for a moment, as if debating whether or not to say more, finally he continued, "She reminds me of simpler days, though I didn't used to annoy her so much, it is slightly annoying to her that I happen to be able to best her height by such a substantial amount now." He chuckled slightly, "It's a petty little thing from when we were children, as I used to be rather shorter than I am now."

  "She seems to be a rather… pleasant individual." Remus said rather neutrally.

  "Don't be put off by her 'cold and distant' front, she's really a very sweet person, although her 'nice and nervous' façade that she pulled subconciously when she first came by Floo travel isn't much of an indication of it." He sighed heavily, "She hasn't changed much. Not half as much as anyone else from those days, though I guess it's obvious why. Julianne left for a more peaceful world, while ours has always been less so." 

  "Why would you say that? Would I be mistaken to say that the Muggle world is not entirely free of conflict?" While the wizarding world wasn't exactly always a happy and serene enviroment, from what Remus knew the Muggle world was no better, and perhaps even worse. 

  "Petty and frequent as conflicts in the Muggle world might be, it's always predictable, small, and far away from where Julia chose to situate herself. On the other hand, in the wizarding world you really can't run from anything." He sighed heavily once again. "No world is free from conflict, of course, she just hasn't been in close contact with it, hence the lack of change."

  "Hm…" Remus gave a rather noncommital reply that could have been of either agreement or dissent. "I suppose so…"

  "Hey… Mr. Lupin, Trevan, I think I might have found what Dumbledore mentioned as 'old family journals'. Can you help me carry these, Trevan? I think they're a bit too much for me." Julianne stuck her head out from one of the library rooms off the hallway, same polite half-smile on her face.

   "Ah… Alright then." With a sudden devilish grin, Trevan pushed Remus forward slightly by the shoulders, "And Mr. Remus Lupin here can help also. That way, we can all get home faster, or at least leave sooner." He winked roguishly at Remus before taking his right hand and pulling him toward the library room. 

  Julianne looked slightly confused for a moment, as if she wasn't quite expecting Trevan to ask someone else to come along, ever when it was just from a few feet away, but her neutral max reformed in moments. She turned back into the library silently, vanishing into the dim interior, even as Trevan continued pulling Remus slowly toward it by the hand.

  "That's fine, but would you mind removing your hand from mine? It's quite discomforting, and there's no need to pull me along a short span of hallway." Remus said curtly as he himself extricated his hand from Trevan's.

  "Certainly." Trevan graced him with another roguish wink, still without any traces of the more contemplative personality he had been exhibiting earlier or of any intention to obey his order. "As you command." After another moment of obstinate smirking, Trevan let go and walked down the hallway, leaving Remus to wonder exactly why so many things didn't quite fit when it came to Trevan Leigh. 

- - -

  "Oh… Thank you for helping out, Mr. Lupin." Julianne continued maintaining that neutral mask, although Trevan could see her starting to struggle on keeping it intact. "But I can carry those, I mean, Trevan already has most of them, and I really don't want to be a burden, just put them on top of the stack I'm already carrying." 

  "It's quite alright, Miss Adhlar, if I'm already here, I ought to make myself useful right?" To his credit, even if Remus Lupin didn't really see the importance for this assignment, he was being very courteous, but then it seemed that being polite was his natural state as far as Trevan had ever been able to tell. 

  Momentarily, he narrowed his slate gray eyes. Remus Lupin might be loyal to the Order, but even the most obedient member of their organization wouldn't accept a seemingly frivolous mission without some sort of protest. As it was, even Trevan didn't much see the 'point' of being told to keep an eye on Julianne when she went out to find things that could be integral to her agreed task of returning Sirius Black from beyond the veil. He was her friend, and she was important to him in that capacity at least, but Trevan did have to admit that there wasn't much reason to act as bodyguard to her as of yet. Julianne might have been good at heart, but she wasn't an Auror or member of the Order, and there was no reason for anyone of the rather unsavoury sort to try attacking at all. Remus might have a slightly better idea as to the justification for this mission, and Trevan mentally noted to himself that he ought to have a little chat with him just to figure out exactly _why_ there were two escorts assigned to Julianne Adhlar at this time, and by Dumbledore, no less. (If it had been Moody, and even a hint of potential security risk, there'd be ten guards… But one digressed.)

  "If you didn't insist on being such a goody-goody, Julia dear, it's not exactly beyond me to carry them all. It's what? Twenty, twenty-five volumes of rotting parchment?" He smirked at her openly as she bristled slightly, although she hid it as well as could be expected.

  "You told me they had been set with a preservation spell…" She said with a tone of concern, "They're not really… rotting are they? Then it wouldn't do anyone much good, if they were damaged beyond a person being able to read them…"

  "No, he was correct when he said that a preservation spell had already been cast on these, most likely when they were first put in storage. " Remus smiled a bit, before continuing, "Mr. Leigh's just joking, well-naturedly, I'm sure." 

  "Yes, with only the best intentions in mind." Trevan said agreeably, "Don't worry, Julianne, even if they were actually falling apart, I'm sure someone back at Grimmauld Place has enough expertise in charms to be able to repair it all."

  "Oh… That's good. Say… Are we going to take the Knight Bus again and then walk over? Or walk the whole way… That would take awhile…" Julianne wasn't exactly the most well-versed in making  effective small talk.

  "Well, it would probably be best to take the Knight Bus until we're within a certain walking distance to our destination…" Remus made a pointed effort not to actually mention the exact location, being the good and vigilant member of the Order it was, seeing that one never knew who could be listening.

  "You know what, that would take too long." Earlier he'd been covertly switching the ten volumes he'd been carrying to one arm, and he suddenly reached out and grabbed Julianne by the shoulder, "I'm Apparating to the doorstep there. See you there, Lupin, hold on Julia dear."

  He noticed that she stiffened in shock as he disapparated from just before Adhlar manor's front gate. It was risky and he knew it, they could easily splinch them both this way, especially when Julianne didn't know how to Apparate in the faintest, and could easily break his concentration if she panicked at the wrong time. This was, however, just the sort of foolish action that could better show off his chosen image of an 'incredibly stupid pretty-boy', and so he took this oppurtunity to prove to Lupin that he, Trevan Leigh, wasn't really anything beyond that.  

  They apparated right in front of the door at Number 12 Grimmauld Place, where Trevan quickly got them both inside, and saw that Remus had just come in as well. Remus didn't seem very impressed by his last display of foolish bravado. In fact, he looked a bit angry, not very much, but a bit. 

  "You know you're a fool ,Trevan Leigh, and you could easily have gotten both of you stuck and therefore open to an Inquiry at the Ministry as to why exactly you were trying to apparate with someone else?" He was upset enough to set down the journals he had been carrying, and turn on his heels and stalk off in apparent disgust.

  "I'm told I'm a fool quite often, Remus Lupin." Trevan whispered as Remus vanished down the hallway, barely noticing that the painting of Black's mother was of course, ranting and raving again, hearing the disruption in the entrance hall. 

  Something about the foul blood of corrupted families, referring to such registered Cursed individuals such as Trevan himself and Julianne, and also something about inhuman monsters, referring to Remus Lupin, as a werewolf. For a moment, he allowed himself to wonder absently whether or not Julianne had realized that yet… It would certainly have made her even more of a nervous wreck while talking to Remus. Not that she was prejudiced against werewolves, beyond the subconcious fear of them pounded into her during her childhood in the wizarding world. No doubt that her parents weren't the only ones who told children to 'behave or werewolves would bite them'. But she tended to become more withdrawn the more things she knew about someone who wasn't quite familiar enough to be considered a friend. 

  "Trevan, that was rather foolish." Julianne said quietly, "I don't know much about Apparition, but technically you're not allowed to take someone with you right?" 

  "Of course, but I'm not a stickler for the rules, never have been." Another roguish wink punctuated his statement perfectly, "If it hadn't worked… Well, at least we'd both have company while being splinched." 

  "What's splinched?" She finally asked

  "Being half stuck in your original location and half at your destination." He put a thoughtful expression on his face, "Though you don't always get divided perfectly between the two places."

  "Sounds rather painful…" She smiled though, being significantly more at ease than when Remus had been around, "It can't be pleasat. 

  "It is… painful, I mean, I ought to know." He gave another roguish wink, as if it wasn't of any significant important, "Happened the first time I took the Apparition test for a license."

- - -

  The darkness and shadows were an endless monotony, as was the chill that seemed to perpeptually hang in the air around him. Sirius Black was having trouble staying awake, that leaden calm seemed to insist that he needed rest and if he would only let himself, than this eternal emptiness. He wondered how long it had been since he first realized he had fallen through the Veil back at the Department of Mysteries and somehow he just couldn't force himself to get up and search for an exit.

  No matter how many times Sirius told himself that absolutely needed to get back and let Harry know he was alright, and whatever had happened to him, he was alright. Whatever the arch at the Department of Mysteries was, wherever he was now, Sirius knew he couldn't let himself stay in this odd place any longer than was necessary. He also knew that he couldn't give in to the urge to just stop, stop thinking, stop feeling, stop remembering. It was much like being trapped outside in a deep winter, he was certain that if he gave in, he wouldn't be able to awaken again. 

- - -

Author's Notes: I do agree with the reviewer who said I could work on getting more-to-the-point in this fic, I seem to be one of those who explains again and again when once would suffice. It's a habit that's hard to break unfortunately, and while this story could get 'boring' at times from the slow movement and the overuse of describing and commentary, I'd just say it's quite unshakably my chosen style. Lately though, I do try on not elaborating some things in writing too much if it's not overtly necessary. Thank yous again go out to all the people who are kind enough to take some time and review, it is definitely appreciated as your words encourage this author very much.

I'm not quite as good at writing canon characters, though I suppose I can take heart in the fact that few of them are close enough or trusting enough of either Trevan or Julianne to be completely open. As for Remus being sent along, well I imagine that the Order is quite vast, even if not all of it's members are very active. And with some very cautious people at their forefront who probably want to avoid taking unnecessary risks, I'd guess they'd have some of their people keeping an eye out for a lot of others with varying levels of importance. So perhaps Julianne Adhlar the soul-chasing Cursed one could warrant someone beyond Trevan as an escort into relatively unknown territory. (I wonder if a wizarding house in disuse for years could be dangerous though, attracting the criminals and squatters of the wizarding world to it… hm.) 

I'd like to thank all the wonderful people kind enough to leave their feedback and once again politely request more reviews to further inspire this writer. Till the next update, farewell. 


	7. Part 5 Illegible Handwriting

Disclaimers: The world of Harry Potter and it's characters belongs to J.K. Rowling and whatever publishers own the rights. (Scholastic, etc.) I on the other hand, am only a fan writing about mainly original characters that I'd like to think of as my own intellectual property.  
  
- - -  
  
Part 5  
  
Illegible Handwriting and Necessary Information  
  
- - -  
  
"Whatever my ancestors of old where, they weren't very good at writing in legible print." Julianne muttered as she flipped through the yellowed pages, "All of them seem to like writing in this thin, fancy script that's near impossible to decipher."  
  
She wasn't muttering for the benefit of anyone else, of course. Number 12 Grimmauld place seemed to be rather empty today, with everyone off, probably doing something useful or whatnot. Whether or not they were allowed to disclose the nature of their activities to her, it was obvious that most of the ones who ever dropped by were rather busy people. Always coming in and out, and often forgetting that it was unwise to ring the doorbell to herald their arrival, so that the woman's painting on the first floor was always screaming unkind things at odd moments of the day. The heavy wooden door of the basement kitchen, where she had taken to doing her research in, wasn't quite enough to block out those screaming rants but thankfully the painting was currently silent.  
  
Someone had mentioned, while trying to silence it, that the painting was all that was left of someone's mother. Which led her to thinking, for just a moment, about what her own parental relations were up to at the moment. They'd written each other a few times over Muggle post since her parents had made their own decision to retreat from the world of magic, whizbangs and such, but they hadn't spoken or even met face-to-face since Julianne took her leave of everything connected to the wizarding world. Personally, she felt it was better for all involved this way. Norman Adhlar and Lani Wang had been loving parents, and Julianne in her childhood had never suffered for lack of love or attention, but people grew up, and circumstances changed. Seeing Pyrane's suffering as a result of the Adhlar 'curse' had shocked them all, and Julianne just hadn't been able to look at anything in her life the same way.  
  
Father and mother had been a bit shocked, but not overly stunned when she finally told them of her decision. Back then, they'd been rethinking what their wizarding world life meant to them as well. For no lack of parental love, they'd still been far too preoccupied with their own doubts to put up much of a protest. Julianne hadn't ever been overly fond of the occasionally cloying attention of parents, and for a moment, she regretted that. When all this quieted down, whether or not she managed to succeed in her promised task, she decided with a sudden burst of resolve, she would go and actually pay them a long overdue visit. It was the least she could do for people who had raised her through early life. After all, how much could it remind her of all - this, she thought as she examined her wand absently, they'd taken to living a 'normal' non-magic life just like she herself had chosen to do. Even if things might be rather distant and strained between them, something was better than nothing. If she never saw them again, it'd be the sort of thing to drive her insane with guilt the next time anything terrible happened to either herself or either of them.  
  
Throughout the exactly twenty-three mid-sized tomes, there were many mentions of 'the olde gift of House Adhlar', but seperating the pertinent information from the frivolities of those old journals wasn't the most simple task. Technically, they weren't journals as much as written records of major family happenings, labeled on the spines as being "Notes Regarding Familial Matters of the Adhlar Line", and the only thing closely resembling possibilities for how-tos on soul-chasing left in the entire house. It had taken some four hours, and those had been the only books that seemed a likely source for the information Julianne had been seeking, out of all the books scattered throughout the libraries and studies at the Adhlar 'manor'. (She had been very thankful that there didn't seem to be any live pest infestations, despite the fact that no one had gone into that house for cleaning since her parents left it some years back.)  
  
By no means had it been a complete sweep of the old family home, that would certainly have taken days more than Julianne was willing to impose on Trevan or Remus Lupin. Just a quick skim over all the books still stored on the crowded wooden shelves, just about groaning with the weight of books no one had read for years since the last of the Adhlars had left for other things, just a quick search through some of the many boxes labeled 'books'. Trevan had done a quick once-over of all the volumes, to ensure they wouldn't fall apart if Julianne read through them, before he'd left of further 'business' somewhere. She still didn't trust herself with the wand, especially when it came to delicate preservation spells on such old books. Judging from the dates written in, some of these were from several centuries ago, and not a single entry from less than fifty years before now.  
  
Knowing all the implications of the Adhlar gift, and the nature of it and it's curse was one thing. Trying to figure out how it was basically done was another, not even accounting for the obvious added difficulty of pulling the physical body out through the Veil as well. All the progress Julianne had been able to make as of yet was to learn that 'soul-chasing' was not a simple matter of congenital instinct.  
  
She knew it was rather selfish of her, but Julianne was beginning to regret her decision to even consider pulling Sirius Black back to the world of living. For one thing, it was already causing quite a disruption to her previously well-ordered Muggle life. By now, she was being so strongly pulled back to her old world, that in her heart of hearts she knew it would be more than she could manage to just step back into that normal Muggle life without looking back.  
  
Provided that she would still have the ability to make that choice. If one thing was made clear through all the accounts of 'the olde gift', it was the price one could easily have to pay somewhere down the line. For some of those ancestors, one incidence of utilizing the gift to pull a loved one from the brink of death was enough to give them 'the incurable fever' and 'the eating away of mind and sanity within a moon'. Yet others in the past had apparently used the Adhlar gift multiple times, yet gotten off scot-free to live a life a relative normalcy. Still others soul-chased once, even twice, then 'cut ties from the family' as most Adhlars had taken to doing these days. As far as family names seemed to go, it seemed that those who were Adhlars through their mother's side noted themselves as so- and-so Adhlar at least in these records. They weren't really journals, per se, just a sort of inconsistent account with a few pages dedicated to recounting some major events of familial importance that had occurred. Besides record of births, deaths, marriages, uses of the gift, and such there were also accounts of things such as children who had gone off to Hogwarts and which house they'd been sorted into. (An observation to be made was that Adhlars seemed to be divided rather evenly between the four Houses, but with a very slight leaning toward Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw most of all.)  
  
This was beginning to be rather frustrating. Not only was she already going to need to figure out her own way to retrieving someone physically from through the Veil, there wasn't even the faintest clue here as to the more basic form of soul-chasing; the mere returning of a life that hadn't yet crossed that line figuratively. She could already tell that this day, and many of the ones following it would be aggravatingly long.  
  
- - -  
  
"Hold on, Remus. Please, I just have to know something. Wait!" He'd seen the other man heading toward Grimmauld Place, but now was as good a time as any to ask; this wasn't the most crowded and/or pleasant neighborhood around here, and he was sure they wouldn't be overheard.  
  
Trevan stopped himself from actually running to overtake the other man, though he was reasonably certain he could, that just gave away how important this was to him; he didn't like showing all his cards unless he had to. Instead, he kept up his brisk walking pace, no faster but no slower than fellow Order member, Remus Lupin was going. This wasn't exactly necessary. But Remus Lupin did have a sort of predatory grace even when going on at a brisk walking pace - probably carried over from his alternate form as an (unwilling) werewolf. It was something Trevan tended to notice, in lieu of 'sizing up' potential opponents. When Remus Lupin was angry at you, one was well advised to be very careful. Werewolves in human form still had more stregnth than the norm for a plain human, wizarding blood or not, and Trevan knew personally that Remus was no exception. (He'd seen the other man at work when hand-to-hand combat had become a passing necessity. Trevan had not envied his opponents in the least. Being thrown into a very solid wall was never much fun.) He did recall that Remus Lupin was still angry at him for acting as an unforgivably daft idiot during that Apparition-with-another-person incident, and not exactly trusting or respecting him, Trevan at the present moment.  
  
"What is it that you want?" Remus might be a bit shorter than Trevan, but when he was obviously not very happy and spacing out his words like that, it was easy to forget.  
  
"However I affronted you, I apologize." Trevan said in a rush, though he wasn't all that out-of-breath after that brisk walk to catch up with him, "I just want very much to know exactly why Julianne needed escorts when she was off looking for things yesterday."  
  
Now the other man just stared, openly incredulous, probably thinking Trevan was far more vacant in the brains department than he seemed, "Isn't it obvious? That in these troubled times, we must take all possible precautions-"  
  
Trevan cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Don't parrot that 'everything is a risk' banter to me, I'm on the receiving end of it all too often. There has to be more to it, I notice enough to understand that at least." He felt himself shifting subtley into 'focused and dangerous' mode, and part of him wondered absently whether or not the man opposite him noticed that in the least, "Perhaps I could have accepted that far overused explanation if it was only me assigned to watching Julianne. After all, why would I believe there to be anything amiss with my keeping an eye on her as an old friend? However, since you accepted that paticular assignment also, I'm thinking that there's more of a concrete reason why."  
  
"Now what on earth would cause you to think that?" Remus looked into his eyes, not yielding to anything he said, "If you must believe it, take it up with someone else. I'm certainly not of such position that I have whatever answers you seem to be seeking."  
  
Trevan kept his urge to start yelling tightly leashed. There was certainly no reason to lose his temper, whether Remus was obliging his request or not, especially while out on a public Muggle street. Still, he was rather accustomed to being obeyed when he let a bit of his more focused side come through, and he was admittedly 'spoiled' by that. Letting himself calm and slip back into the image of the slightly-dim but friendly Trevan, he decided that he could still ask one more time without too much incident. After all, one didn't want to reveal too much when they themselves were seeking information.  
  
"Please, I know there has to be something more." He said with open and sincere worry apparent in his tone of voice and facial expression, "I'm worried about Julianne, she is a very close friend of many years, even if we were quite estranged for so long. If there's any reason at all why there's a possibility of danger to her. It's important to me as a friend to know."  
  
Remus looked rather skeptical, but the expression on his face softened a bit. It was noteworthy how almost everyone seemed to be aging faster than they used to these days. For many, strenuous mental and physical activity on a regular basis could be exhausting, and make one seem older than they were. That seemed to be the case with Remus Lupin. His brown hair now contained much more gray than it had this time last year, and his face was lined with all the worry and emotional strain of this past year's events. While previously, it had always seemed that Remus had things a bit more difficult than most, having to live with all of society's prejudice against his lycanthorpic affliction, he was also one who had suffered possibly the most emotional strain in the past few months also. To lose a true friend who'd been close since childhood. Trevan could not understand how that felt, and he knew it. Most of those he actually considered friends were still fully entangled in their 'normal' lives in the wizarding world, still far from any danger, something he put all his heart into protecting them from.  
  
Finally, Remus sighed, but he seemed to think it would be alright to tell Trevan something, at least, and he said, "Well, seeing the nature of the Adhlar abilities, they are a sort of wild-card in anyone's plans if they're in the right place ant the right time?"  
  
Trevan nodded wordlessly, that was true even if it was highly unlikely that any of Julianne's family would help anyone out whether it was imperative or not. The only situation of the sort Remus was describing that Trevan could think up went along the lines of Death Eaters rendering some important figure of goodness greivously injured, while someone with the ability of soul-chasing was nearby and willing to assist said figure of goodness. Basically, it was a highly unlikely situation, especially considering that any self-respecting figure of darkness would just put the killing curse to good use if their dastardly plans were of any sort of importance. Still, one never knew what was possible.  
  
"Then there's your reason. Being an institution of beauracratical inefficiency that they are, the old Registry of Cursed Families is now public information even if it's been out of use for more than a century at least, and prominent among them is the Adhlar family. Dark forces have been building up their forces lately, but they've also been out to eliminate potential threats to their plans." Remus looked him in the eyes, as if searching for evidence that the supposedly dim Trevan was understanding at least some of his words.  
  
Once again Trevan nodded curtly, "Right, go on."  
  
"There's been some indication that others related to the Adhlar family have been targeted. One of Julianne's cousins, even as he has not been in contact with the wizarding world, was almost attacked, although those responsible left before they got tangled up with Muggle law enforcement. As of yet, we can't be certain that it wasn't just conincidence. Dumbledore doesn't want to take uneeded risks." Remus frowned slightly, though at what Trevan couldn't be certain, "I'm not as up to more active assignments currently, you know why, so there wasn't any reason why I shouldn't also keep an eye on Miss Adhlar." With that, Remus continued toward Grimmauld place, now pointedly ignoring Trevan, leaving him to try making sense of what the other man had just told him.  
  
To take it at face value, there wasn't any sign of their being a true threat to Julianne as a result of her abilities that could supposedly make anyone's plans a mess. Reading between the lines, however. He wondered if it would be altogether out of bounds to run his own covert check on whether or not the rest of Julianne's relatives of the paternal side had been victims of Death Eater activity lately. Perhaps not, at the very least he could get it done quickly with the rest of the Order none the wiser, just a quick popping in and out through Apparition and make sure they were all still living peaceful and mundane Muggle lives uninterrupted. Provided, of course, that he could manage discovering their current location.  
  
As far as he remembered from his futile search for Julianne when she'd first left the wizarding world, most of her relatives had likewise dissapeared from said world before then and the ones left within his reach had been entirely recalcitrant and declined giving him any information regarding their relatives' whereabouts. Especially Julianne's parents; they had refused to owl him any replies to his polite letters, and wouldn't even open the gate when he came to call in person. (When he'd persisted in pounding the gate, yelling out loud for all to hear that he refused point- blank to give them any peace until they gave him some answers, they'd set a rather spectacular pair of show-quality large hounds on him.) Certainly, seeing as they left the wizarding world to hide from it, none of them would leave word with the Ministry if they could avoid it, and as far as Trevan knew all but the most distant cousins to the Adhlar family had long since vanished into the Muggle world. (Incidentally, those who lived relatively standard wizard or witch lives were the ones that likely didn't have the soul-chasing ability or the Curse that came with it. None of them were the sort who wished to test that theory out.)  
  
He sighed heavily, then walked off slowly in the opposite direction. Suddenly, there just wasn't any desire for going back to headquarters. At least, not until he'd figured out a few things. Perhaps it was a bit less than normal for him to put so much of himself in protecting Julianne, old friend from school days or not. But he wouldn't be the last to admit that he really didn't have much of a 'life', as some might say. Besides, he mused, it was this sort of thinking that had gotten him involved in the Order in the first place. Feeling as if everything would be satisfactory as long as he was able to do his part in looking out for the safety of those who were less predisposed to fighting against the forces of darkness.  
  
- - -  
  
Author's Notes: No, Julianne's maybe being a potential target isn't much of an issue that's of great importance to the plot. Although I would assume that any of the Cursed families would be worth recruiting or eliminating because it's horribly inconvenient to have veritable wild-cards with unique powers running around when one is making plans on a very large scale. (Most Cursed individuals would avoid taking a side though, preferring to deny their more unique abilities because of the potential consequences for themselves.) Besides trying to bring back poor Sirius, though, I don't think 'soul-chasing' will be of much use this time around. Since their last failure, I'm suspecting that 'when in doubt, Avada Kadavra' is the general Death Eater rule of thumb for the Second Great War they're starting up at this point in the story.  
  
In a world post-Order of the Pheonix, I'd suspect that almost any grown wizard whose competent but hasn't sided with Voldemort at all is a 'potentially sizable threat' to the Death Eaters' agenda though. At least, if we assume the wizarding world isn't too expansive in terms of population, any wizard of top-half-percentile would be a highly probable future risk since I'm thinking the self-proclaimed Dark Lord is going about his plans with plenty of paranoia and caution.  
  
Thanks once again to all the kind reviewers! And yes, choco-chan I'll send an email notification on the story when I post new chapters. And thanks especially to MWPP and Lily whose been loyally reviewing every chapter. I put chapter-by-chapter feedback on your Daniel Potter story, it's going well so far, I think!  
  
As always, more feedback in the form of reviews is always appreciated! 


	8. Interlude Memories of Schooldays

I return to you after a three-week sojourn into the world of high school speech and debate, and then another week or two of laziness. Sorry it took so long to get this update out, and it isn't even much of a proper update, more of my trying to fit in such a thing as said speech and debate into the Harry Potter world. (The Interlude .5 also in this update was supposed to be a story of Sirius Black in his school days because it'll be a while before he appears in 'Cursed' but that never panned out and I instead changed it into basically a piece on how Ravenclaw vs. Gryffindor was the major House rivalry of their time.) Note that 'Interpretation' is a speech event involving a ten minute performance out of a published script from either a play or novel usually, but with no props, costume, or anything but the performer and any vocal and physical characterization they can muster up. (It's quite hilarious when done properly, and I've seen a rendering of Mel Brook's The Producers done that way. Although I think only the original movie version of it was out in the 1970s.  
  
Disclaimers: The world of Harry Potter and associated characters is the property of J.K. Rowling and her publishers.  
  
- - -  
  
Interlude  
  
Memories of School  
  
- - -  
  
"Persuasive Elocution, Muggle Studies classroom. I guess this is it." Julianne whispsered as she pushed the door open slightly, peeking inside to make sure that it wasn't the wrong place, "Looks like it, Crowden and Erwint are inside, at least."  
  
Hogwarts had a very small Persuasive Elocution club, modeled on a sort of sport that Muggle students engaged in sometimes. (It was supposed to be called speech and debate, but that sounded altogether silly to most of them.) Today was the first meeting, and one of their club officers had been very vigorous in his recruitment activities, assailing first years with fliers and club descriptions every night in the Great Hall, and they'd decided to just be nice and show up for a meeting so he wouldn't round on them in the common room every evening until the end of the year. (He happened to be a fifth-year prefect of their own Ravenclaw House, Erwint had also tried jumping out at them like that in the Common room. Though the girls had started escaping to their dorm as soon as they got within the premises of Ravenclaw territory, the boys did not have that luxury. After all, being a fellow boy of their House, Erwint could gain access to their dormitory room very easily, and had taken to sliding fliers under the door.)  
  
A motley group, they were all Ravenclaw first-years: Trevan Leigh, Julianne Adhlar, Julianne Acker, Gunther Haffner, Shyaam Pradhu, and Nina Orestes. None of them were able to take Muggle Studies yet, so it'd taken them a long time to search out the listed meeting place. Gunther had been rather indignantly complaining about how listing the classroom was no help when they didn't provide a map in their fliers, and it was sure to discourage the few they'd managed to get interested in 'Persuasive Elocution'. Half of them weren't even certain what that was. At least according to a Muggle dictionary Julianne (Acker) had bought from home, elocution had something to do with public speaking. The other half of them shuddered at the thought of 'public speaking', an activity enjoyed by precious few, whether they be Wizards or Muggles.  
  
"Good day, new ones, come on in." A boy who looked like a third year said with obvious joy that they were going to assimilate some new members, "Make yourself at home; we, that is all our twelve club members haven't gotten started yet."  
  
"Hey, I know you. You're on the Slytherin team right? And you helped Madam Hooch teach us first years flying because she thought you were very 'technically advanced' and you're their best Chaser and-" the blond Julianne (Acker) fell silent when Shyaam elbowed her.  
  
"Correct, she had me working on the real 'hopeless' ones. Sorry." He apologized quickly when he found most of the 'new recruits' glowering at him, dark intentions clear if he continued, as most of them had needed his help at that class session being truly abysmal at flying on broomsticks.  
  
Julianne 'Julia' Adhlar blushed at the memory. While most of the more intellectually predisposed Ravenclaws weren't all that skilled at more athletic pursuits, she'd been a disaster on the broom. Just as they thought she was doing a bit better, and the third year Slytherin, Durant Crowden, had turned to help someone else Julia had almost fallen off her broom again, and he'd had to coach her all the way to a clumsy and undignified landing. Perhaps Ravenclaws were supposed to be more wise in their ways than prideful, but Julianne was rather self-concious and it now distressed her to be face-to-face with someone who witnessed one of her weaker moments.  
  
The general stereotype of Ravenclaws was that they were all book-bound 'geeks', for lack of a better word, and while it wasn't exactly true there had been more 'hopeless' cases from Ravenclaw than any other House during the first-years' flying lesson. Book-bound academic work mongerers or not, an alarming majority of them had no athletic talent whatsoever. Especially poor Gunther, but his lack of ability in getting the broom off the ground at all kept him from being a complete and utter embarresment in the air. Especially memorable had been Marie Beckett's ill-advised attempt at flight, Crowden had barely missed catching her eyeglasses before they smashed on the ground when she went into several successive high-speed Sloth Grip Rolls entirely by accident.  
  
At least that entire fiasco had helped prove to even the most terrified of the first years that all those rumors about the vicous Slytherins weren't entirely warranted. One could be surprised at the sort of horror stories the older students told about them, and even normally rational first-years generally shrank away when they passed one in the hall. Negative stereotypes were a horrible thing, a blight upon school society, but impressionable children would believe them anyway.  
  
The Muggle Studies classroom, which seemed to be serving as the headquarters of the Persuasive Elocution club, with their notice board on one corner was quite unlike any other Hogwarts classroom they'd been in so far.  
  
While many other classrooms had various bits of magical devices in them, or useful supplies for whatever class it happened to be, or even personal effects of whatever teacher generally made use of the room, the walls of the Muggle Studies room were practically wallpapered with various photos of various Muggle things. The front page of a newspaper called the 'New York Times' was displayed on one chalkboard, and posters with pictures of a group of funny-dressed Muggles holding signs were labeled 'Make Love not War - a Paradoxial Statement'. An essay assignment was displayed on one half of the chalkboard, telling the N.E.W.T.S. class to compare and contrast the theories of morality in various different Muggle theologies. Books of the sort Flourish and Blotts didn't carry much of were crammed into various bookshelves that looked very well-used. Such preposterous names though, what exactly was 'The Count of Monte Christo' or 'Sense and Sensibility'? Who was John Locke or Thomas Moore? Who actually wanted to study 'Muggle Concepts' of something called 'Communism'? Muggle Studies couldn't be a very interesting class, most of them were thinking to themselves. It looked positively boring, especially the assignment for the third year class, which consisted of a badly drawn diagram of a boxy device for students to explain.  
  
"I see most of you have returned, and we have some new faces." A dark- haired asiatic boy was saying from the front of the classroom; he seemed to be a club leader of sorts, "I'm Keisuke Nobushimo, Hufflepuff seventh year and current president of our humble organization dedicated to the prestigious art of Persuasive Elocution, where we explore such activities as oration, structured debate, simulations of Wizengamot trials..."  
  
- - -  
  
"Can a person be any more long-winded in a simple explanation." Trevan muttered as he started work on a star chart for Astronomy, "Honestly, he went on for nearly a half hour that other people would spend only a moment explaining."  
  
"Well that's what the club's for, isn't it? Learning to use speaking as a way of persuading others, as opposed to more heavy-handed actions." Nina said seriously, even though that effect was lost considering she had a quill stuck behind her ear while she rummaged through her schoolbag, searching for some book or another.  
  
"Don't tell me they have you convinced." Gunther said with a scowl, "It's no wonder they're not a very popular club, the way they were talking it must be more work than most people would want to take on willingly. Especially older students who are studying for O.W.L.S or N.E.W.T.S."  
  
"Well, I like the sound of it." Julianne said softly, more focused on the assorted notes she had lain over the table at the center of their lopsided circle of blue armchairs, "It seems nice, except for the part about giving speeches to an audience."  
  
"You only say that because that Crowden boy from Slytherin kept smiling at you." Gunther said with a slight growl, "He can't be very nice, you know, most Slytherins aren't."  
  
"Don't be stupid." Acker tossed a book at him, her Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, "She thinks it sounds fun because she's got more than the half a brain you've got, Gunther."  
  
"I guess." Julianne whispered, though her face had reddened slightly at Gunther's earlier declaration. "I'll be going to their next meeting, anyway.  
  
"So am I." Shyaam said, "I want to be a prosecutorial barrister with the Wizengamot like my mum when I grow up, and Elocution is good on your record for stuff like that. Oration and debate sound like fun anyway."  
  
"Fun?" Trevan had an overly exaggerated affronted look on his bespectacled face, "How can you consider something for fun, Pradhu?" Then he started imitating a very badly done French accent, "Ve are Ravenclaws, ve are put into thees vorld to stoody hahd and keep oothers from thar fun, ahnd to bhe vet blankets and sooch. Ve do not haff fun, it's beeyond us."  
  
There was a slight scuffle as bits of wadded paper and books were thrown at Trevan, some from people sitting outside their circle in the Ravenclaw common room. Many mutterings were heard, with words of disapproval for his audacity to interfere with studying time. Although Trevan got all the book- throwers back by using their newly-learned Levitation Charm to float all the books beyond their reach. He said qutie sensibly that it was just plain foolish to throw around books that one needed for studying, then retired with much (insincere) hurt sniffing, leaving them to retrieve their precious schoolbooks with whatever charms and spells they could think of. (It took help from a fellow first year who'd taken very well to charms and their counter-charms to get all the books down.)  
  
Acker glared at the staircase to the boy's dormitory, "That wasn't exactly a nice thing to do, we just tossed things at him. He's altogether something of an annoyance to be around sometimes, that Trevan."  
  
"Well, he's funny." Nina Orestes seemed to be undecided between whether she should laugh or storm up the steps after Trevan and do something equally 'not nice' to him, "If the definition for funny is very general and subjective anyway, not taking into account how thoroughly exasperating a person also happens to be."  
  
"Hah." Gunther said, making it very clear that he didn't think anything of the sort, "Imagine sharing a dorm with him, he won't shut up and let us get any sleep sometimes." Then his expression softened slightly, "But I guess he makes us laugh - sometimes. He can be a good person when he sets his mind to it."  
  
Shyaam sighed heavily, he hadn't tried tossing a book at Trevan, so he'd been doing his homework quietly all the while, "I guess that's part of the reason why some of the more straightlaced friends of my mum and dad say Leigh's are strange, if all his people are like that."  
  
"When he acted up at the meeting though, Nobushimo was on him to do something called 'interpretation', one-man acting or something." Nina remarked absently, as she turned back toward her schoolbag, once again looking for something.  
  
"Right, whatever." Acker sighed heavily, sinking back into her chair, "By the way, do any of you know brooms at all? They said whatever I've been flying at home, it's obvious by my faults in terms of flying that it's no good, and they said I ought to get a new one if I want to play when a spot opens up next year."  
  
- - -  
  
"We should have stopped the madness." Gunther said with an audible groan, "Now, we really have too. Before he makes a fool of himself before the rest of the school."  
  
"With the utmost respect, I don't think he'll be making that much of a fool of himself to the 'rest of the school', if only because few ever come to the Elocution exhibition." Nina said with a sigh, "Although I second the need to put a halt to this.  
  
"There could be parents there." Julianne (Adhlar) whispered as she blanched noticeably, "They'll probably want to have him put away, he looks about half-mad when he performs."  
  
"Right then, so we knock some sense into him and get him away from that stage." Shyaam said curtly, "I'll get him before he goes up there. I swear, Nobushimo and them should realize that what we find mildly funny might not be so good for the parents and other students to see."  
  
"They encouraged him." Gunther also looked rather pale, "Poor Leigh, he's going to be so upset when no one laughs at his ten minute rendition of some Muggle playwright's rather dodgy work. It insults all manner of things, you know. He'll lose us points."  
  
"Half those parents are going to be rather conservative, if they're interested in coming to check on us and all. That's what Crowden told me, because we tend to be very liberal and all." Now Shyaam was beginning to look equally unwell. "They'll want to have Trevan kicked out after they see one of the more profane parts o fit, I knew Nobushimo should have told him to cut those out of the script."  
  
"He should have just given an oration on something bland." Julianne said with a quiet moan, still looking very pale, "Like family or something."  
  
"What are we all sitting around for, let's go!" Acker lept up and grabbed Gunther and Shyaam by the collar, dragging them toward the exit of the common room, while Nina and Julianne followed after them hurridly.  
  
- - -  
  
They had to hand it to him. It was a very ambitious attempt at interpretation. They'd come in just as Trevan was finishing up, too late to stop him. Despite the fact that it wasn't generally well accepted, there was singing and dancing despite the restrictions of a standard competition in interpretation, and he managed to tell the story in under ten minutes, somewhat inappropriate words and all.  
  
More interesting, perhaps, would have been the fluctuating expressions on their faces as they watched from the back of the Hall, just knowing how badly the audience would react. It was likely they were only keeping silent out of courtesy to the performer. If it had been under less strenuous circumstances, the way Gunther's face turned a funny gray-green during Trevan's cut of 'A Little Priest', with the part about politicians being so very oily, would have been cause for laughter. As it was, the rest of them were too busy trying not to be noticeably sick themselves.  
  
"Nobushimo's a Gryffindor, right Adhlar?" Nina whispered to Julianne at a moment where Trevan was raising his voice, sure that no one in the audience could hear.  
  
"Yes, but why do you ask?" She said, also in a low whisper.  
  
"Only they could be stupidly brave enough to allow this."  
  
"Oh."  
  
Yet when Trevan finally finished up; to them it had taken an eternity, since they'd seen it far too often already, the reaction was rather different from what they'd expected. Despite the fact that the short scrawny blond boy could be a rather aggravating person to have around more often than not, as his friends they were worried for him. Perhaps it was only because they were still only first-years and weren't quite sure what to expect. But they did realize that Trevan's scripted performance had the potential to be rather incendiary if taken the wrong way. For one thing, it was a Muggle work, targeted to Muggles and whatever odd sense of humor they had, and could be anything from confusing to offensive depending on how those wizarding parents took it down.  
  
So they were very surprised when the (small) gathered crowd gave him a standing ovation. And it wasn't just the members of the Elocution club that were clapping. In the middle of their own anxiety, none of them had managed to notice that most of the audience had actually been very accepting of their fellow first-year's performance, and had even managed to laugh at the proper times, hopefully meaning that they had taken all the humorous moments as being in good taste. It wasn't until all the applause had stopped that Nobushimo came up onto the stage.  
  
"Mr. Leigh here has been working hard all year, therefore we're proud to announce that we're making him a club captain next year, youngest ever, actually, since he'll be a second year."  
  
- - -  
  
"Ha, well I told you there was no reason to be so worried." Shyaam told them in as much of a matter-of-fact tone as he could manage. "But you all insisted on running in there to stop him anyway."  
  
It was later that afternoon, more like the evening, really, and they were all gathered in the Ravenclaw common room as they were most evenings. Although Nina was at the library with some of her other friends doing some group project or another, and Trevan hadn't shown up since after his earlier onstage performance, supposedly claiming that he wasn't feeling too well. However, their numbers were balanced out a bit, with Shyaam's nonidentical twin Sphoorti Pradhu and Joel Melville, one of Trevan's roommates joining them.  
  
Gunther gave Shyaam a very sour look, "You weren't acting any more rational then the rest of us, Pradhu, and we didn't manage to get there in time to 'stop him' as you so delicately put it."  
  
"Isn't that what you wanted to do?" Sphoorti asked with a slightly raised eyebrow, she hadn't been there, but her twin had told her everything, and she seemed to find Gunther's reaction to it all very amusing.  
  
"He'll be going to the Tournament, and as a first year only." Julianne said in her usual sedate and quiet way, "I never noticed he was working so hard." She admitted.  
  
"That's pretty amazing, you have to admit, I never expected that." Acker said as she flipped through the latest issue of Quidditch Illustrated. ('Chudley Cannons Long Past their Prime?' and 'The Virtues of a Nimbus' being the headlining articles.)  
  
"Before watching that, I'd have thought it entirely ludicrous." Shyaam said, with a thoughtful expression on his face, "He's much more confident when on stage though, he was always stammering and forgetting lines when he practiced."  
  
"He's improved since the first time he tried it." Gunther said grudginly, "Surely Sondheim's 'Sweeney Todd' a la intepretation is better than a speech on the societal need for better legislation against owl post fraud." He sighed heavily, probably disappointed that his own 'boring' oration hadn't been completed in time for the club's exhibition.  
  
"Don't feel bad, Gunther." Julianne said in what could only be called a whisper, "We all have six more years to improve. And your speech is better than mine." She added as an afterthought.  
  
"Argh." Joel said with a clearly audible groan, "You just take every oppurtunity to bash your own work, don't you, Adhlar. I tell you, that puts a drastic dent in your self confidence. And makes the rest of us feel bad. Because we're worse." He then muttered something unintelligible about wondering why he tried at all, since he got hives from the stress whenever they made him practice for an audience of more than two people  
  
"I suppose." She busied herself with a book, eyes downcast, giving a noncommital answer.  
  
All the while she was thinking to herself that even when she never truly felt that she was part of the group, it was times like these that she always wanted to remember. When they looked at everything through nothing but the pure naivete of childhood, certain that everything they'd ever been told was right, and with nothing to worry about but themselves and their friends, if they were so inclined. Because no matter how sheltered and well- protected Hogwarts was, the world then was just beginning to know true evil and what consequences it could bring upon the blameless and innocent.  
  
These were days where they didn't think about the dissapearances that the Ministry was always having to investigate, didn't think about the ever growing rift between pure and mixed blood. Days when most where still assured of their own safety, and that the self-proclaimed 'Dark Lord' was no more than some fanatic making trouble in his own corner of the world. Days before Julianne really began to cloister herself in behind her own walls, before she even thought about leaving everything she once loved behind.  
  
- - -  
  
Interlude .5  
  
A Ravenclaw Grudge  
  
- - -  
  
"Oh and then and then Sam got the Quaffle but oh that lousy ol' Gryffindor Beater. Something with Black as a surname, and he almost nailed poor Sammy in the side while Potter stole the Quaffle.. He's Head Boy right now, you know, though I can't say how he managed to get that position. But I can see why he's the Gryffindor captain at least, best Chaser of all the House teams, if the matches so far are any indication." Julianne Acker, known for the sake of making things simpler as simply 'Acker' was chattering on and on about her favorite subject - Quidditch, as she walked to classes with the 'Julia' Adhlar.  
  
Sometimes, now that the Ravenclaw first-years were more or less a tightly- knit group of friends, they called their Sorting the 'Hat's Folly' because the ragged old thing had put two Juliannes into their House. It would have made for confusion if they hadn't started off using nicknames immediately, something both the girls had been reasonably agreeable about. While others might consider it a bit unrefined to refer to one by their family name even when they were very close friends, Acker seemed to think it perfectly fine. In fact, she positively beamed whenever anyone else called her 'Acker', thinking in this childish phase of her life that it was a 'nice and unique' thing to be called. Julianne Adhlar, an introvert by anyone's measure, hadn't raised a single objection to being constantly called 'Julia' though by now they had figured out her reaction was more from being deathly shy than anything else. Either way, 'Julia' had been the nickname that stuck, even if simply 'Julianne' would have been fine and dandy in light of Acker's choosing to go by that name.  
  
'Julia' didn't have much of an interest in the wizarding game at all, on the contrary, she thought it to be inordinately violent and wholly frivolous anyway. However, Quidditch was the one thing all Hogwarts students were united in, even if they would then be at each others' throats over House alignments. Even if it was something that lead to more arguments and minor brawls than any other activity, absolutely every single student in all of Hogwarts turned up for every Quidditch match. (Unless, of course, they were bedridden with some unfortunate disease or injury.) As it was, Julia wasn't much the sort to bring up a new conversation or shoot down whatever anyone else was saying to her, preferring to listen quietly and say 'I agree' or 'that's a bit extreme' at the appropriate intervals. Meanwhile, Acker was again lost in her own world of discussing Quidditch, going on about the Ravenclaw House Team which she admired greatly, and whether or not they stood a chance against the star players on other teams.  
  
As a first-year, Acker wasn't allowed to play, though she had gone to the tryouts at the start of the school year anyway. Ravenclaw captain Samuel Kingston, also a Chaser of great stregnth, had pronounced the first-year girl as 'talented with Seeker potential' but not enough to warrant the fuss Madam Hooch would make if they tried putting such a young student on the team. Instead, he told her to come to practices as a Reserve player, and they'd likely take her on next year, when the current Seeker graduated.  
  
"Did you know that Potter - the Gryffindor captain, like I said earlier, he wanted to put a first-year on his team. Some boy named Charles Weasley, but Professor McGonagall wouldn't allow it. Sam's heard that the kid's extremely good, so he's on their Reserve team of course, but none of them have managed to sneak about to scout out Gryffindor practices yet. Black and Potter supposedly have the nasty tendency for hexing anyone whose not in their house yet is slinking about anywhere within proper seeing-distance of the pitch while they're practicing." She sighed heavily, than took a deep breath before starting up her commentary on the current state of Hogwart's Quidditch yet again. "Hufflepuff's still got a very strong team all-around, but they can't stand up to extraordinary talent, which everyone else has at least one player with this year, and Slytherin's in a slump except for their Seeker, who sticks out like a sore thumb and therefore an easy target in any game because he's small and scrawny as opposed to being some sort of hulking brute, Crowden I think his name is."  
  
"Yes, it's Crowden, Durant Crowden." At Acker's raised eyebrows and incredulous look, since her friend rarely spoke up when the topic was Quidditch, Julia stammered out to clarify, "I only remember because that was the last thing the announcer was yelling at the last match. Something about Durant Crowden catching the Snitch in a close match against the Hufflepuff Seeker."  
  
Acker chuckled in a good-natured way, "Right, I remember now. Names escape me usually. You rarely speak up when I'm rambling on and on like that, though. Never thought you'd notice anything about Quidditch because it seems like the only thing you don't pay attention to at all." Acker was quiet for a bit and they continued their walk in companiable silence.  
  
They could only be too thankful that the next class right after lunch, Transfiguration to be exact, and they had quite a bit of time before they really had to start hurrying. (Professor Minerva McGonagall took House points when a student came in late.) Currently, they were walking very slowly considering class-time was coming up soon, with occasional pauses to wave or exchange pleasantries with familiar faces also milling about in the corridors.  
  
"Why do the Quidditch players dislike Gryffindors so much?" Julianne asked when a moment of silence had stretched onwards for a bit. "Not just our House team either, or Quidditch players from Ravenclaw in general. But it seems that most of the older Ravenclaws get this decidedly sour look on their faces whenever Gryffindor students are mentioned at all."  
  
It was something reminiscent of the unyielding prejudice that met people like werewolves or vampires wherever they went in the wizarding world. Although, if what her very few older aunts and uncles told her about the 'old days' for Cursed families when they came around to visit at all were to be believed, such strong dislike based on a rather arbitrary factor could well happen to Julianne and her relatives as well. If there was any unpleasant quality that seemed to be shared by all humanity, wizards and Muggles alike, it was this tendency to blindly discriminate against those who were not-quite-the-same based on a factor that wasn't really anyone's to control. (Although one had to suppose that whichever Hogwarts House one was sorted into, an individual student's traits and personality had a lot to do with it.) Her mother was Muggle-born and some of her books told stories about the horrific things Muggles between many nations did to each other in something they referred to as a 'World War', which incidentally had coincided with a minor period of chaos in the wizarding world surrounding the rise of the Dark Wizard Grindelwald.  
  
"Ah. Well, I don't really understand it myself." Acker admitted, looking slightly taken aback at the question, "Although I'll admit I get swept into it whenever Sam starts off on another one of his 'Gryffindors are attention- loving gits' rants. Mostly out of team spirit, I suppose?" She sighed, seeming to be rather perplexed herself. "Our seventh-year Beater, something Halton, he'd the one who really hates specific people in Gryffindor House, and I guess the rest of them are still rather sore over how Ravenclaw lost the House cup to them last year."  
  
That was probably the main reason. Hogwarts students seemed to take House alignments and inter-House competition very seriously, even the oldest of them who were supposed to be mature and therefore beyond such petty things. By all accounts, it had been a very brutal match, to say the least. At Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizadry, the 'noble sport of warlocks' had supposedly been in a very sorry state for a long time, except for a small scattering of blazing talent here and there. (Just now with the hard work of such captains as James Potter and their own Samuel Kingston, some said things were looking up, though whether or not that was true remained to be seen.)  
  
Gryffindor's House team was the best among them, and supposedly Ravenclaw's team had only managed it to the finals by a narrow win over Hufflepuff. Potentially legendary Chaser or not, Samuel Kingston hadn't been given a chance to show his leadership ability that year, and while he was making up for it now, that could hardly change the happenings of the past. Some of the more exaggerated tales told of the match as being a slaughter, with Beater Sirius Black pounding both the then sixth-year Beater of Ravenclaw, Ardath Halton and then-fourth-year Samuel Kingston into the dirt while James Potter flew circles around the Ravenclaw Keeper (a relatively inexperienced third-year girl) scoring goals all the way.  
  
Ravenclaw as a House was like any other, and they could be a prideful lot, especially when as a collective group. In truth, the two most powerful warring groups would always be forever at each other's throats, and in their era those groups were Ravenclaw House and Gryffindor. (Slytherin had been in a sad state of affairs since the proud and haughty Muggle-hater Lucius Malfoy graduated a few years back, or so some students still whispered. Hufflepuff found their strengths as hardworking team players, and had never taken pride in rising above other Houses.) It probably exacerbated the tensions between the two Houses that the Ravenclaws had no spectacular and outstanding leader to stand behind, while there were the decidedly flashy James Potter and Sirius Black on the Gryffindor side.  
  
"Who would Halton dislike so badly?" Julianne asked quietly as they continued walking, "I never notice him being anything but easygoing. Although I suppose I wouldn't know since I've only seen him sometimes in the corridors and the Common Room."  
  
"Who else? James Potter and Sirius Black of course." Acker rolled her eyes, looking as if she didn't think very much of either of them, "Our Head Boy's wonder duo. It doesn't exactly help that the two of them have got Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew behind them. Neither of them are quite as much prone to showing off , but I'm told they're all quite cunning - they're the ones who charmed all the benches at the non-Gryffindor House tables to dump the students on the floor after the Sorting was done our first day in. I don't understand it myself, but it seems that a lot of people just don't get along very well with those people."  
  
"Oh." Julianne answered, not exactly sure what to think.  
  
As they drew nearer to the Transfiguation classroom though, Acker continued, this time seeming more serious than before, "I don't much agree with it myself. But I'd guess jealousy plays into it some. A lot of Ravenclaws believe themselves to be very intelligent - truly, they are, but with that comes a need for being better than others. Halton feels that especially, and I think he's the only one with something personal against any specific Gryffindor. He's pureblood, you know, so he used to be friends with Black and Potter, and he's just the competitive sort too, and he didn't like being put into a House that traditionally isn't very exalted."  
  
"I suppose, but how would that translate into a general incompatibility between the two Houses?" Julianne didn't really know the people in question, so she was rather confused.  
  
"They're something of the 'leaders' of Gryffindor, and if we had any it'd be Halton, and he doesn't like being second best. But they're the two top- ranked students in the seventh year so far, and there are other Gryffindors just behind them, while Halton's fifth. He's never liked being second, much less anything beyond that. That pretty much sums it up." Acker smiled again when they came to the door of the Transfiguration classroom, "Now let's go in, and for once we aren't close to being late."  
  
Julianne thought it didn't make sense, that arrogance and pride should never play such a large part in animosity between people. How could something so small be the basis for all the undercurrents of animosity she felt between those of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw?  
  
- - -  
  
Author's Notes: This isn't really an important plot point, though the other students mentioned here might likewise get short mentions at other points in the story, mostly as wistful memories of Trevan and Julianne. The next part is both third-person and first-person revolving around Pyrane Adhlar, in lieu of Julianne's reading her writings in those 'family journals'.  
  
Well, as far as I've outlined, Sirius won't appear for some time yet, but when he actually does, 'Cursed' will center around him a bit more than any of my original characters. After he's actually been retrieved from beyond the Veil, there's another story arc that I've yet to specifically plan out.  
  
Once again, thank you graciously to all the kind reviewers. Always would be grateful for further feedback and reviews of course. And some of the confusion while reading my work is probably my fault, I do have to start writing in a less rambly and twisty fashion sometimes. Also, I hope to return to more regular and consistent updates, even with the impending start of the school year. 


	9. Part 9 Another's Story

Disclaimers: HP world not mine. Cue weeping.

Notes: Merry Christmas to all! I realize how long I've abandoned this story, but fear not! I read the first parts again just now and realize so many things were badly executed, but all that will change… oh yes, I am rewriting this fic, somewhat MS-ish premise or not, if only to prove to myself that I can do it well. Either way, I had a lot more of Cursed written before I stopped updating more than a year ago, and for the sake of having it go somewhere… I'll continue posting it on a more or less weekly basis… However, be aware that the problems of typos, awkward style, and awkward execution will not really be fixed… Because I'm now focusing on the completely edited and hopefully better-written 'Promises to Keep' that is Cursed with better writing and a few plot kinks worked out!… I hope you support 'Promises' also. Thank you all!

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Part 6

Another's Story

- - -

It was rather anticlimatic, all things considered. A simple incantation was all it took, although that can disillusion one as to how much it actually takes to succeed. But I did, in bringing the poor man back. Konnor Lambert, I remember that he used to be the rather quiet and uncreative sort, the kind who might make their living writing drafts of utterly boring regulations for the Ministry or something like that. Officially he does that, actually, as an assistant to some desk-bound official in the Department of Magical Transportation. Unofficially though, the implications are mind-boggling, to say the least. How he could end up so badly damaged, to be truly on the veritable brink of death, I don't know and would rather not have explained to me.

To my own credit, if we can consider it so, I chose this of my own free will with full knowledge of what it could possibly do to me. I did all the research, in the old books that this volume happens to be a set with – I magically inscribed my own accounts of these days' proceedings into some extra pages I inserted, also with magic. Perhaps one reading this would frown upon me for diluting the quality and authenticity of these old records, but I feel that I ought to write out my own views on the 'olde gifts of Adhlar blood' for reference to those in the future. Call me obnoxiously self-centered, but I don't feel that an objective accout has not been given in these 'ancient' tomes. The fact that in their time, they must have chosen to gloss over many things becomes far more apparent now.

Poor Konnor, I only chanced upon him because I was passing by one of the Spell Damage wards at St.Mungo's. Suprisingly, even when they're a wizard hospital, they actually see very few cases that are true emergencies. (I'd like to make a side note that I'm seriously taking into consideration the option of leaving my training to be a Healer, the site of blood and some of the more messy effects of spells gone awry puts me in panicked hysterics.) I was supposed to be fetching some bandages and pain-killing potions for one of the Senior Healers, but when they brought Konnor in, they were roping all the available staff in to help out. Even a Healer student like me managed to get dragged in, if only to keep a check on some of those Healing Web spells that are only brought in for the most desperate cases. (Likely because it takes so much out of a person, leaving it sustained for more than twenty minutes will leave the one casting it out of action for almost an entire week. It's only useful for people who are really walking a fine line, only thing it's very good for is preventing the further degeneration of an already grave situation, preventing further blood loss, and things like that.)

I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be in such horrible condition as a result of even the most severe bout of cursing. (Wand-waving kind, not familial.) I've seen patients in very unusual predicaments, but we don't see life-threatening afflictions much at all. There was a sort of unspoken tension in that ward. (after clearing the other patients out) We've read 'between the lines' of the Daily Prophet, just like any other people who want to understand what's truly going on these days, and this is unquestionable proof that dark days are coming over us, Konnor's wounds could not have been caused by mere accident. He must have had a run-in with someone bearing very ill intentions. Such things can not possibly have occurred by accident, as most cases we see at St. Mungo's are. (What else can cause things like hats that are stuck convering the heads or whatnot? Entirely benign, but also utterly annoying, having to come up with ways of removing such hats without decapitating the patient, something that was always a temptation. That paticular condition is becoming overly common as of yet thanks to some defective Zonko's product.)

I suppose it's fate causing a rather sudden sort of coincidence, that I had been reading up on soul-chasing just a few weeks earlier. I don't know what possessed me, having read the parts where all sorts of horrific pain and suffering were implied as being the due of anyone who used the Adhlar gift instead of keeping it locked up, but it was a simple matter when I actually made the decision. A whispered 'Reverto Anima' with the full intent behind it to bring someone back, when he would otherwise have likely strayed beyond the point of possible return. My wand was out of course, though I got the feeling that the actual process of soul-chasing doesn't require it, since it seemed that it used my own spirit, soul, or whatever one calls it as a conduit for the powers being channeled. It's nearly impossible to explain in words, but it's the sort of thing that should be easily recognized for what it is, at least in the individual feeling it. Though I believe all the other Healers felt that something was going on, with me as the source of the subtle disturbance. Thankfully, none of them actually thought to interrupt it, though I don't think I could have been stopped at that point, and the entire process of soul-chasing would have continued whether they dragged me from the ward or tried to shake me back into my senses.

My best assumption is that I was in a deep trance for some time. While I still knew that I was back in the ward at St. Mungo's, one of many Healers tending to Konnor, I also knew I wasn't entirely there. In that 'other place', everything was rather dim and I couldn't see any light yet it wasn't completely dark. Before me was this sort of rounded doorway, an arch if you will. Around me, I felt things brushing by me, going through that portal, yet nothing came out. I looked beside me, and there was Konnor, or rather something unsubstantial and shapeless yet it felt like Konnor's presence. Unlike all those other undefined somethings passing by, though, he couldn't get any farther than the archway, yet he couldn't leave either. Perhaps it will sound rather preposterous, but it was as if I suddenly knew what I had to do, and even while everthing was all shadows, chill winds, and nothingness it was both calm and serene for a moment. The me in that place put out her hand, and that shapeless form that was Konnor seemed to accept it, and suddenly I was back in that ward and of course the fully trained Healers were yelling at me. Half because they thought something bad had happened to me, and they were relieved that I was awake, half because it was wholly unacceptable to mentally wander off like that at such a crucial point in time. (I had the urge to ask them why they weren't paying any attention to the patient right then, if it was such a crucial point in time, but wisely decided against it. It didn't do me any good for them to continue on their tirade, this time for not respecting authority, and being impertinent.)

One of them gasped and her eyes widened in surprise, I'd never seen any Senior Healer toss aside her dignity enough for that. She dropped the bottle of some medically-driven potion, but it didn't shatter since we only use magically reinforced glass, it just bounced and rolled under the bed. His bleeding had been stopped completely, something none of the Healers despite their best efforts had been able to do, and half those horrible bloody gashes were gone. No longer was his pallor that of one dead, as opposed to the deathly pale look he'd had earlier, it seemed that he looked as healthy as anyone else now. It'd worked, and for a moment it was exhilerating, I'd done it, used the power of the Adhlar line, and I was perfectly fine, none of that 'raging fever and pain unequaled' that one paragraph in these old records had been describing.

Here now I put down my words of warning, as honestly as I can describe the aftereffects of soul-chasing, which is better than I can say of what other information on it these records contain. The backlash hit about ten minutes after I had come out of the trance, and very suddenly. One moment I was helping the others put away supplies, ignoring their questions as politely as could, the next I was falling to the ground, breathing hard because everything hurt with pain greater than I'd ever encountered before. Then everything was a blur, in the back of my mind I was aware that someone was putting me in a bed, calling for others to come over, but that was the least of my worries then. First the pain and then something else entirely.

Memories and thoughts that weren't mine suddenly filled my head. So many, I couldn't process all of them, a lifetime's worth to be exact. Then I just shut down, it was too much. For just a second then, it was dark, peaceful, all that I expected from a unconcious spell. Then everything continued crashing in, and it wasn't long before I realized this was Konnor's life flashing before my eyes. Not just important memories that might have been floating about his head, but abolutely everything he'd ever known and could possibly have remembered, and most of the things he probably didn't. It's hard to describe, but I attribute it to that moment of contact before I came to from the first trance, and my best guess is that when his soul took my hand to be led back, it somehow replicated all his memories in their entirety to me. What I gave to him was another chance at a life that he would otherwise have forsaken, what I was given in return was all the thoughts and memories that he'd ever had in his life. All in one moment, that was probably what caused me to faint, more than the pain and feverish physical aftereffects of soul-chasing.

I don't know what happens to others who do this, but I feel that it's probably all those extra thoughts and memories that will inevitably drive a soul-chaser insane. It's just too much to absorb in such quantity all at once. As if all that one can remember of their own life doesn't already fill the mind to top capacity already… Though it's said that some manage to soul-chase several times, I suppose that some of my ancestors could endure the onslaught on someone else's memories for much longer than others. I thought I'd lose hold of myself, although I was finally able to push away Konnor's memories, even if I knew then and still know now that they'll always be there, waiting for when I lose my guard to come back in a rush.

If it were my place to formulate a theory on it, I'd say that all memories by nature are always fighting to push to the surface, even if they have to crush other thoughts and memories to do it. Perhaps because they don't actually belong to me and didn't just trickle in by a normal process, these were making a very powerful effort at taking over. Even as I did my utmost to ignore them, I was learning more about Konnor than I'd ever want to know, right up to the moment he had been hit with enough malevolent cursing to almost end his life. I'd have to say I was surprised… Studious yet helpful Konnor Lambert, once a quiet and unassuming Head Boy out of Hufflepuff House – a combative agent of goodness that fought Death Eaters every so often? If I'd been able to, my expression would have been of incredulity, as it was I was conclusively asleep in the physical world, and only able to look on as I tried to sort out my own memories and separate them from Konnor's. People that I'd never met myself, I would now know by sight forever after if Konnor knew them, and I wondered if his personality, even the confident, calculating, and ruthless side of him that hunted down Death Eaters in the name of good would also carry over to me. Some of what he knows scares me, like most people I guess I'm the sort who'd rather not know about all the evil and horrible things going on in our world today.

I heard later from the Healer supervising my training, that I was out cold for nearly two weeks, and I was alternately mumbling nonsense and crying out in pain the whole time. They had decided to contact my parents, and they'd come for as long as they could leave their work but it hadn't done anything for me. The ones assigned to working on me got as much Deep-sleep Potion into me as they could, although it didn't seem to help me any, as far as the Healers could tell.

When I finally woke up again, I'd managed to get all of Konnor's memories to more or less be pushed to a far corner of my mind, no small task I'll assure you. I woke up quietly, still feeling dizzy from being out of it for so long, and it took a while to realize that there was someone sitting there beside me. They'd drawn the curtains around me, so I didn't know what ward I was in, and with the lights dimmed and all the funny shadows caused by said curtains, I was surprised enough to scream when I actually noticed, though no sound came out because my throat was pretty much dried out. (Too much sleep without people being regularly able to dunk fluids in through my mouth.) The person remained silent, watching warily, as if not certain what to expect.

I swallowed a few times, something that was rather uncomfortable, but I managed to talk in a slightly cracked whisper. He was a familiar face, a family friend more closer in years to my older siblings rather than myself. Gideon Prewett, who I remembered as being an Auror of considerable ability, by all accounts. I knew him, but it was hard to divide my memories of him from Konnor's thoughts about him. Not a formidable man, he actually was more homely and benign than anything else. Ordinary hair somewhere between light brown and blond, and eyes that seemed to be those of one who was open with his words and emotions. Not a very tall or powerful man, by first appearances, I knew him to be soft-spoken but obviously intelligent from the few times I'd ever had the oppurtunity to speak to him.

Before, I'd always thought that it was rather unlikely that he was a well-respected Auror who'd dispatched several wizarding criminals throughout the course of his career. Now, after receiving Konnor's memories, I knew differently. Yes, he was a capable fighter just like Konnor was, someone who'd taken down people more dangerous than any 'average' wizarding criminal without thinking it anything special because he'd done it many times. For the last year or two's worth of Konnor's life, Gideon Prewett had been more than just a casual acquaintance by virtue of working in the same place. He'd been a comrade, and like Konnor he'd seen hell in a war that had barely been acknowledged by the general populace yet. If it didn't scare me as much as it did, I would have been laughing at the notion of it, as it was I was frozen in fear. Why else would someone who knew me only because the rest of my family worked in the Ministry or went to school with him turn up now, if not because of his more secret profession. Had I somehow become a threat to their activities, willingly or not, through assimilating Konnor? Or where they even supposed to know that such a thing had occurred? Soul-chasing was a very rare gift, limited to the Adhlar family and it was impossible to know about the memories one gained of the person whose life had been saved, it wasn't even written out for family members to see. That fact at least, should still have been a secret to him.

- - -

"What do you want, Gideon?" Pyrane whispered, before she had to stop speaking in order to cough, "Well? It's hard to believe I'm worth a visit since I'm not close to dying and you're obviously very busy."

If he suspected that she knew about his more dangerous activities and profession, he didn't show it. For now, Pyrane was left to wonder whether Konnor might have imagined all those memories. Gideon still looked more like some eternally calm and thoughtful intellectual rather than an active fighter against what Konnor had known as forces of darkness.

One borrowed memory stood out especially, one where they and Gideon's brother had been cornered somewhere by people in masks and dark hooded cloaks. The energy trails of various powerful curses flew by them, and Fabian had bitten down a scream as it left an angry reddened burn mark on his shoulder. Gideon looked enraged, his eyes filled with more rising emotion than Pyrane had ever seen, and he'd went to face those black-hooded enemies, firing off a spell that few outside of working Aurors were allowed to use, something Konnor at least had recognized as a powerful offensive spell that was far above the ability of the average witch or wizard. The attack had stopped, and Konnor had come out from behind the ruins of a wall and surveyed the results with a dispassionate eye.

One of those masked men now lay dead, the others were nowhere to be found – Konnor had thought they'd fled like filthy cowards, without enough honor or courage to stand and fight the moment one of their targets had turned and attacked. Gideon Prewett was different in that memory, with the air of one still in the bloodlust of open battle, and Konnor had just cast a disdainful look at the corpse, then told them it was time to leave. None of them with any care for a life Gideon had taken, whether it was to defend a brother or not. No mercy, no pity, nothing but acceptance where earlier there had been cold rage that most were incapable of.

"The Healers here reported that they didn't know what to expect, your parents and Thisbe were worried, though they couldn't stay." He said, mentioning her sister and the rest of Pyrane's immediate family with the exception of her brother, "There's also bad news, Castor met with an unfortunate accident three days ago."

Pyrane's mind was still saturated with confusion from all the extra memories she'd gained recently, and from being out cold for so long that she didn't really understand what he was saying about her oldest sibling, a brother. Very funny, she wanted to tell him, but Castor worked in a job with nearly no risk of true danger, and lived in similar fashion. In fact, he probably had built himself the safest life of anyone these days, even accounting for all the knowledge of the 'Dark Lord' and his doings that Konnor's mind had implanted firmly in her head. By Merlin's beard, Connor maintained a kennel for Krups, Kneazels, Puffskeins, Owls, and the like on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. Even all the surprising things Konnor had known didn't add anything to what she knew of Castor.

"Don't jest, Prewett, it's not becoming." She felt a bit of Konnor seeping in to her manner at the moment, his quiet despair at the dangers he faced so often, something that had been hidden deep within him by what she knew lending a slight icy bite to her words.

He seemed slightly surprised by that, though, for what little he knew of Pyrane he'd only ever met her while she was at her best. The last time had been at a small Yule party her parents had invited him to, where she'd been as friendly as she usually was, a person prone to smiling and laughing with sincerity at any appropriate time through almost anything. Though he hid it well, but from what she knew now he had to be a good actor because of his arguably more important duties, as part of the 'Order of the Pheonix' group that Konnor had been so deeply involved in.

"I do not lie to you, Miss Adhlar, it was however, an accident. Criminals that had yet to be apprehended had come for other targets, one of your brother's neighbors. As far as the investigation has been able to discover, your brother came to their aid only to be overpowered and killed just as they were." He said this all with not even a hint of feeling, as if he played courier to many such messaged of tragedy, which in this day of many sudden disappearances and death from foul play he probably did. "I'm sorry." He added as a perfunctory gesture.

A saying came to mind right then. "Don't kill the messenger", but it was something she very much wanted to do just then. That or cry for a brother who, while never paticularly close was still that – a brother, family, of blood that flowed through her veins also. For a moment that 'I'm sorry' was nothing but a slap in the face, an accusation that today she had as good as saved the life of another, yet someone much closer to her had been lost. Some part of her mind wondered if it would feel to her that Castor's death was her fault, that snatching another away from death's reach, it had chosen to take someone else away. An accident, Gideon said, but as she stared at him, wide-eyed with shock battling disbelief, she wondered whether or not it was an accident. The only question was whether her brother had died at the hands of Death Eaters, as Konnor called those he fought against, or perhaps Castor had fallen victim to one of them, Gideon's crowd. No matter what she knew through Konnor's memories, she wondered whether she could ever be certain which side was the 'correct' one.

- - -

I always think that they suspect it, after all, how could they not? Every time one of their 'Order' was miraculously saved, there was always one Healer-trainee recorded as being present, one who eyewitnesses say had fallen into a trance momentarily while others desperately tried to save the patient through more conventional means. One Pyrane Adhlar, me, who would then fall ill for a week or two, and now would always look upon them with barely concealed curiosity and occasionally suspicion.

Perhaps my name 'Adhlar' gives it away, what I've been doing. Certainly most of the older families who pays attention to the tendencies of certain family lines in order to look after their own interests, would recognize me for what I was. Soul-chaser, one who was returning those whose souls had balanced precariously on the proverbial cliff, yet was ever more noticing that the price would be exacted in due course.

I couldn't stop though, even knowing that as I assimilated more lives' worth of thoughts and memories, my own mind was as surely being eroded away as was my health. What kept me at it was seeing Konnor's wife and children one day, at Diagon Alley some weeks after I had saved his life, and seeing him with them. He was smiling, happy, and for a moment even I could believe he was just another wizard, who never had any excitement in his life yet was perfectly content. I knew that was far from the truth, yet that is also the image I am faced with every time I see a case like his. As I keep a copy of their memories for myself (by no will of mine), I know that each and every one of them are part of that 'Order', and although I am leaving them to fight and kill some of the less innocent in the world, something I wouldn't condone; I also know I am leaving them free to experience happiness one more time, something they have in very short supply.

I wonder if it is possible to raise the dead. How can I not wonder, after bringing back four unfortunate souls to date? Last time, I entered the trance a bit early, murmuring the incantation 'Reverto Anima' a bit early. So then when I first stood at the doorway to wherever souls went for 'true death', I stepped in. It is said to be death, a point of no return, or at least that was what I had assumed, but it doesn't need to be, apparently. Because I managed to return, although that might have been because I had not gone far in.

Someone stopped me before I'd gone five steps. It was a surprise, because even as I felt lives rushing by me into that doorway, all the time, even occasionally felt their presence, no one had ever come through with a physical form before. Or rather, not exactly a solid form, but close, although it looked as if it'd faded a bit. It didn't speak in a conventional manner, though I felt every intent it meant to portray. Time seemed to stop, because we conversed a considerable amount, yet I had actually been out of it real-world wise for a very short time. But the passage of time is always a strange thing in that place.

When I asked whether he or she was human, it seemed to say yes it was, although it didn't remember what it had been. It looked more masculine than feminine, but not decidedly so. I asked who he was, and the reply was that he no longer remembered, but he thought of himself as a Gatekeeper, for the rare time when someone wandered through the door and didn't belong, yet could still have a chance to escape. Something like me, for at the moment I had gone where most can only reach through death, though not very far. It started to ramble then, conveying many messages with little meaning to me, but it seemed to think were important. It told me to remember these things.

That it, or he had once been someone who wandered through the door while stil physically alive. Long ago, when the doorway existed in the 'real world' too, although he said it still stood now. He'd never been able to find the doorway again, to leave this place that was death. Yet souls of the dead do move on to other places, this was only a sort of limbo, but he could not because he had never died, per se. That if I intended to come in further as I was now, I must be wary, because I could easily become lost like he was, leaving my physical form behind. That I couldn't raise the dead, because that was not possible, with no living body to anchor a soul, it can not return to the living world. His parting words as I rushed to find the person I had first come to save, on the living side of the door were that the gift I had could do extraordinary things, but I should stop because it would destroy me. I never intend to wander again, that experience was too odd and unsettling to be repeated. It's not as if I haven't noticed how hard it's been on me, I'm acting more and more reckless and rather nasty at times, probably from the mix of people inside me, can't choose who to act like anymore. I've also been losing weight, and generally look somewhere between very pale and slightly gray.

- - -

It's nearly the end of the year, now, I don't think I'm going to be intact to see it though. While I'd been doing a decent job keeping everyone else's memories back, when I brought back a seventh person I'd started having trouble with it. Tried a Pensieve, but none of the thoughts would allow themselves to be removed. Feel ready to collapse, afraid to sleep because every time I close my eyes I can't remember who I am, Konnor or one of those other 'Order' people, or myself.

Pyrane Adhlar

- - -

Julianne swallowed as she closed the journal, too distracted to make sure she wasn't accidentally folding any of the yellowing pages. She'd been as upset about her rather distant cousin's death, more over the fact that it was a Curse she could also fall victim to than out of knowing Pyrane was a good person who did not deserve such a sudden death. But it was another thing entirely to know about her last moments – not of life, since as far as Julianne could recall her cousin had been in a state of insane rambling with little ability for anything but yelling and screaming while trying to claw at anyone else who came near, at least until the healer wizards at St. Mungo's had drugged her before she slowly died.

While her cousin's account was by no means written in exemplary fashion, and couldn't straight-out communicate the depths of pain and emotion that could easily have been present in the happenings being detailed, it upset her to read them. To have all of someone's memories transcribed into one's own mind – that couldn't be pleasant, and she had no way of being certain whether or not it would happen to her if she succeeded.


End file.
